President Obama says Jesus wants to raise taxes:

"When I talk about shared responsibility, it's because I genuinely believe that in a time when many folks are struggling and at a time when we have enormous deficits, it's hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income or young people with student loans or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone," Obama said.

"But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus' teaching that, for unto whom much is given, much shall be required"

Ah, yes. If I remember correctly, it was at the Sermon On The Mount that Jesus said, "Blessed is the tax collector, for he shall forcibly extract hard-earned wages from the people and funnel it to power-hungry politicians in order to fund a bloated and corrupt spendthrift government that will use the money to engage in cronyism and buy votes". It was either that, or Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek". I can't be certain.

As with so many Obama statements, the one about Jesus is filled to the brim with falsehoods. Nobody is asking "seniors on a fixed income" or "middle-class families" or "young people with student loans" to "shoulder the burden alone". Everybody pays taxes, and the rich already pay the most. Actually, now that I think about it, nearly half of all Americans pay no income taxes. So much for "shared responsibility". How ironic it is that Obama lies in the same sentence in which he quotes Jesus. When I think of Obama, another biblical verse applies – “The tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue” – (Ps.52:2-4).

When asked about Obama's comment, the President's Press Secretary, Jay Carney, whipped out his own devilish forked tongue to say Obama "wasn't campaigning" when he made the comment. Riiiight. Obama isn't campaigning about as often as fish aren't swimming.

Since our President is pulling out the 'What Would Jesus Do ?' card, I have a few questions.

When the government forcibly extracts the fruits of one's labors beyond that which is called for in the Constitution to fund the government, couldn't that be called stealing ? I seem to remember something in the Bible about "Thou Shalt Not Steal".

When the government raids the Social Security Trust Fund, couldn't that also be called stealing, and doesn't that hurt "seniors on a fixed income", as does Obama's payroll tax cut ?

And what about abortion ? I remember something in the Bible about "Thou Shalt Not Kill", yet, Obama is pro-abortion and ObamaCare forces religion-based healthcare providers to fund things like birth control, which would include the morning-after abortion pill. What would Jesus think about that, Mr. President ?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) weighed in on ObamaCare's forced religious contraception coverage issue, and in typical Pelosi fashion, she had no idea what she was talking about. Pelosi said she was "standing by her fellow Catholics" in support of ObamaCare's contraception mandate on religious groups. That's nice, except for the fact that the Catholic Church is AGAINST the ObamaCare mandate:

The Obama administration's decision requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control was bound to cause an uproar among Roman Catholics and members of other faiths, no matter their beliefs on contraception. "It's not about preventing women from buying anything themselves, but telling the church what it has to buy, and the potential for that to go further," said Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, representing some 600 hospitals.

Liberals are always telling me religion should stay out of state business, so it should follow that they believe the state should stay out of religious matters. After all, the First Amendment to the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]". Yet, liberals are supporting Obama's contraception mandate. Go figure.

Naturally, there will be costs to religious-based healthcare providers, and fines if they don't adhere to the ObamaCare mandate:

Employers that fail to provide health insurance coverage under the federal law could be fined $2,000 per employee per year. The bishops' domestic anti-poverty agency, Catholic Charities, says it employs 70,000 people nationwide. The fine for the University of Notre Dame, the most prominent Catholic school in the country, could be in the millions of dollars.

What effect do you suppose this will have on Catholic charities ? And why doesn't our Jesus-quoting President care about that ?

It's always the same with the big government types like Obama. They always think they can make better decisions with your money than you can. They always impose costs and burdens on the private sector and the business sector. They always infringe on liberty. Religious groups are concerned about where these liberal mandates on the public will end. I can answer that one. They DON'T end. NOT EVER.

We already know about the failure of Obama's stimulus investment in Solyndra, which cost the American taxpayers $535 million.

We found out a few days ago about the failure of Ener1, another Obama stimulus-funded alternative energy company, which has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The taxpayers put up $118 million for that one.

Another stimulus-funded alternative energy company, Beacon Power, also failed. The taxpayers lost $43 million on that deal.

That's three failures in less than three years…how many more will there be ?

And now this – the inspector general for the Labor Dept. is calling for an end to Obama's green job training program. Why ? Because it isn't working. There aren't enough green jobs:

House Republicans are expanding their probe into the Obama administration's energy programs, investigating $500 million in green job training grants that placed just 10% of trainees in jobs, according to a government report.

The program's goal was to train 124,893 people and put 79,854 in jobs. But 17 months later, 52,762 were trained and 8,035, or roughly 1 in 10, had jobs. Those numbers come from an audit by the Department of Labor's inspector general, which recommended that the administration end the program and return unspent money.

Sounds like those green jobs aren't panning out so well, but some disagree:

Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates defends the initiative, saying the inspector general's audit used old numbers and that it was never designed to provide immediate results.

"It's like coming to me three days after I join Weight Watchers and yelling at me because I didn't lose 62 pounds yet," she said. More recent numbers are still being compiled, Oates said.

Okay, but it's been 17 months, not three days, and if "more recent numbers are being compiled", whose fault is that ? It's not the Inspector General's fault for using the numbers the Labor Dept. gave him.

Here's one example of the green job shortfall:

One group Issa singled out is the Pathstone Corp., a Rochester, N.Y. non-profit that spent $2.3 million of its $8 million grant and had trained only 25 people — far short of its 660 goal, auditors found.

Those numbers are "extremely outdated," said Pathstone's Jeffrey Lewis. But he conceded that job placements have been much slower than anyone would have liked. "This grant came just as the recession heightened," he said.

I'm starting to sense a defense mechanism at work here, the "numbers are outdated" excuse. That raises this question – why don't the recipients of stimulus-funded training dollars know how many people they trained with the money ??? Why doesn't the Dept. Of Labor know ??? Where's the accountability ??? Or are they merely engaging in obfuscation ???

As it turns out, the government's own bureaucracy has gotten in it's way:

Bureaucracy also slowed the process. As part of its grant application, Pathstone needed to line up employers to take its graduates. But by the time it won the grant, one employer in Scranton, Pa., stopped hiring after a moratorium on natural gas drilling…

And who implemented the natural gas moratorium ??? President Obama did, though it seems he might now be reversing course, according to comments from his State Of The Union speech:

In his speech, Obama said America’s natural-gas reserves could meet the nation’s energy needs for 100 years and provide 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.

“The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy,” Obama said.

Good move for energy production and job creation, but there will be controversy here, and it's name is "fracking":

The Bureau of Land Management estimates 90 percent of natural-gas drilling on public lands involves hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which a mixture of chemicals, sand and water is injected into shale formations to open fissures and allow the natural gas to come to the surface.

Environmental groups are against fracking (environmental groups are against EVERY method of energy production that will actually work to supply America with the energy it needs):

Groups such as Protecting Our Waters say hydraulic fracturing — in which a mix of water, sand and chemicals are shot underground to break apart rock and free gas — is tainting drinking water and causing more pollution than is cut by the cheap gas. The broad new federal legislation and regulation the groups advocate would tangle up fracking in miles of red tape, industry leaders counter.

The EPA agrees that fracking causes groundwater pollution, and because the EPA is basically an autonomous government authority answerable to nobody who can make it's own law, the "miles of red tape" prediction sounds likely. In fact, I think America's energy policy of the last thirty years should be called "miles of red tape". Nothing much ever seems to get done.

In summary, Obama's grand prediction of "millions of green jobs" seems far from becoming reality, but not to worry, the government has plenty of YOUR money to burn on Obama's quest. Speaking of which, the CBO just said the federal deficit will top a trillion dollars again in 2012. That makes four straight years with deficits over a trillion under President Obama. Funny how he didn't mention that in his State Of The Union speech. It's a pretty big deal. I guess he just forgot.

Our President, the Great Prevaricator, likes to mislead people. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise. That's what prevaricators do, they mislead. Obama's statements about who pays their "fair share" of taxes have received lots of press, as have Obama's statements about billionaire Warren Buffett paying less in taxes than his secretary. Let's examine these claims.

According to 2010 tax data, the top 1% of earners made about 24% of the national income (if you include capital gains) and paid nearly 40% of the income taxes. Thus the rich, as a group, are paying nearly double their "fair share" according to the data. The Great Prevaricator conveniently forgets to tell us that part.

Here's Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to elaborate on the point:

"We have to start with the facts on whether the rich are paying their fair share. We hear that over and over again, 'the rich are not paying their fair share,'" Paul said on CNN's "State of the Union." “The top 1 percent, the millionaires in our country, pay on average 29 percent of their income. That's what they pay on average. The average carpenter who makes $50,000 to $75,000 a year pays between 15 percent and 18 percent. The top 50 percent of wage earners pay 96 percent of the income tax."

These numbers are known as "facts", something the Great Prevaricator would prefer you not know. Instead of dealing with the actual facts, the Great Prevaricator talks about individuals, whose tax burdens can vary widely. That's why Warren Buffett and his secretary become the Obama talking point regardless of the facts. If we're dealing with facts, our tax code is progressive. The rich pay more.

But I'll indulge the Great Prevaricator. Let's talk about Buffett and his secretary for a minute.

First of all, Warren Buffett pays a LOT more in taxes than his secretary does. Let's have no confusion there. On Warren Buffett's 2010 tax return, he paid nearly $7 million in federal income tax. Unless Buffett's secretary is the highest paid secretary in the history of the universe, I guarantee you she pays nothing close to that amount.

The part of Buffett's tax bill Obama wants you to concentrate on is the percetage of taxes paid compared to income. For Buffett in 2010, that came to 17.4% of his income. This is where Obama and liberals become outraged. Obama wants it to be a minimum of 30% for those earning a million bucks or more, and I imagine most Americans would agree with that.

But there are other considerations. If Warren Buffett's earnings were taxed as regular income, he'd pay at a 35% rate (maybe 30% after deductions). I haven't pored through Buffett's tax return, but I'm going to guess a substantial amount of his earnings come from long term capital gains, which are taxed at a rate of 15%. There are reasons why capital gains are taxed at a lower rate. Here are some of those reasons:

The term “capital” refers to produced goods used to produce future goods. Even a corner lemonade stand could not exist without capital; the lemons and the stand are the essential capital that makes the enterprise operate. A recent study by Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University discovered that almost half of the growth of the American economy between 1948 and 1980 was directly attributable to the increase in U.S. capital formation (with most of the rest a result of increases and improvements in the labor force).

Investment (capital) is what fuels our economy. The more capital we invest, the more economic growth we will have. In a free country (which stands in contrast to the centralized Obamacracy the President described in his State Of The Union speech), that capital comes from and is invested in the private sector. Why would we want to discourage it by taxing it and sending that money to the federal government ?

Next, liberals like Obama make the same economic mistake over and over again, by thinking capital only makes rich people rich. That's crazy thinking, because capital investment benefits everyone via job creation and a rising standard of living:

Between 1900 and 2000, real wages in the United States quintupled from around fifteen cents an hour (worth three dollars in 2000 dollars) to more than fifteen dollars an hour. In other words, a worker in 2000 earned as much, adjusted for inflation, in twelve minutes as a worker in 1900 earned in an hour. That surge in the living standard of the American worker is explained, in part, by the increase in capital over that period. The main reason U.S. farmers and manufacturing workers are more productive, and their real wages higher, than those of most other industrial nations is that America has one of the highest ratios of capital to worker in the world.

If capital investment wanes, so does our standard of living, and so does the middle class.

The third reason long term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate is inflation:

capital gains are not indexed for inflation: the seller pays tax not only on the real gain in purchasing power, but also on the illusory gain attributable to inflation. The inflation penalty is one reason that, historically, capital gains have been taxed at lower rates than ordinary income. In fact, Alan Blinder, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board, noted in 1980 that, up until that time, “most capital gains were not gains of real purchasing power at all, but simply represented the maintenance of principal in an inflationary world.

If you bought a stock in 1990 and sold it for 50% more than you paid for it, you might have actually LOST purchasing power, and that's BEFORE the government takes it's 15%. Let's also not forget that investment is capital at risk, and if you lose a million dollars on an investment, that money is just gone. You don't get to reduce your tax burden by a million. You just bet and lost. The end.

The Great Prevaricator doesn't want you to know any of these things. Here's something else he doesn't want you to know – the government doesn't get that much revenue from capital gains taxes to begin with, and…raising the capital gains tax rate may result in LESS federal revenue. Obama's own administration has estimated that increasing the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 20% would bring in $100 billion in federal revenue over ten years. That's $10 billion per year, and that's only if the capital gains tax rate was hiked for EVERYONE. What is $10 billion per year going to accomplish when we have a $1.23 trillion deficit ? Not much, even if the Obama administrations guesstimates are correct. They could easily be incorrect, because there's another thing about capital gains taxes Obama doesn't want you to know – they are the easiest taxes in the world to avoid. When the capital gains rate goes up, you can avoid the tax by holding onto your investment, or even worse, by investing overseas, which the wealthy can do whenever they wish. Thus, a higher capital gains tax rate would have the effect of driving investment AWAY from America. Not too smart.

The Great Prevaricator conveniently forgets to tell you any of these things. He's some piece of work, that guy. We deserve a much more honest President. I can't take much more of people repeating his lies and distortions. If he wants to be an education President, he could start by not making the public dumber and more misinformed himself.

Enough about capital gains. Let's turn to Warren Buffett's secretary. Obama recently claimed she payed twice the tax rate that Buffett did, which by my calculations means she payed an income tax rate of nearly 35%. If what Obama said is true (most of what he says isn't), that would make HER one of the rich, because she'd be in the top tax tier of 35%. What is Obama complaining about ? She'd be one of the people he wants to tax, but Obama says she represents the middle class. If so, I agree with the President. 35% is way too high a federal income tax rate for a middle class person to pay. Let's cut her tax rate to 15% IMMEDIATELY. I'm FOR the middle class. How about you, Mr. President ? Why are you punishing the poor hard-working woman with such confiscatory tax rates ?

In any case, here's another question to ask yourself.

Where does Buffett's secretary get her salary from ???

Answer – It comes from Warren Buffett !!! Thus, in reality, since Buffett is paying her entire salary, he is paying her taxes too, as well as the taxes of all the employees he hires. Obama thinks we're too stupid to make the connection, but we're not all part of the Occupy movement, Mr. President.

And Warren Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, pays taxes too. Obama doesn't mention that part either. If Obama was being honest, he'd say Warren Buffett is generating a tremendous amount of revenue for the federal Treasury through both direct and indirect means. But that's only if Obama was being honest, which he isn't…or maybe he's just a dunce. It seems hard to believe, but he talks like a dunce.

There's one other rather curious thing about Warren Buffett. While he pimps for more taxes for Obama by calling for "shared sacrifice" from the rich, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, owes an alleged $1 billion in back taxes to the federal government, and is threatening protracted litigation with the IRS while Buffett tries to cut a deal to pay less. I'm thinking that if Buffett really believes he should pay more, he would pay it instead of hiring attorneys, ya know ?

My final point about the Great Prevaricator's class warfare tax shuffle is this, and it's a doozy – there aren't enough millionaires in this country to come anywhere near to plugging our $1.2 trillion budget deficit. In 2009, there were 236,883 households that had an income over a million dollars, and only 8,274 made over $10 million. If we took another million bucks away from all these rich folks (which would mean we'd be taxing most of them at a tax rate near 100%), it would rake in $237 billion for the federal treasury, leaving us still with a budget deficit of a trillion dollars. According to the CBO, Obama's 30% millionaire tax proposal would bring in $453 billion over ten years. That's a deficit reduction of $45 billion per year, which would take this year's $1.23 trillion dollar deficit down to $1.78 trillion. Big fricking whoop. Nothing at all would change. Nothing. That's what all the Great Prevaricator's screaming and wailing is basically about…NOTHING. It's all phony cover for all the spending increases Obama wants.

What we really need to do is cut federal spending, like the Republicans keep saying. Spending is at a record-high, and it's why we have record deficits. The Great Prevaricator doesn't want you to know that either. Contrary to his words, Obama isn't putting together "an economy built to last". He's building an economy that cannot possibly last.

Anybody But Obama in 2012. I beg you.

After watching President Obama's State Of The Union (SOTU) speech last night, I have to say, the man simply astounds me. Obama is the ultimate politician, a very good performer. I have to give him that much. He knows how to give a speech. They say politics is the art of manipulation (or maybe it's just me saying it). Obama has that game down pat. He knows how to tell people what they want to hear, and more importantly, he knows how to leave out the parts people don't want to hear, the parts Obama doesn't want the people to know.

If you had arrived in America for the first time yesterday and listened to Obama's SOTU, you'd think things were going really well in America. If all you listened to was this President, you'd think he has done a fabulous job, because he told you he has. You wouldn't know how deeply we are in debt. You wouldn't know we have record deficits. You wouldn't know our entitlement programs are unfunded. You wouldn't know unemployment is so high. You wouldn't know our public schools are falling short. You wouldn't know our health care costs are still skyrocketing. You wouldn't know we're on an unsustainable fiscal path. You wouldn't know the federal government is borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it spends. You wouldn't know Obama's net record on private sector job creation is below zero. You wouldn't know the federal government is spending more money than at any other time in American history barring WWII. You wouldn't know we have record numbers of people on government assistance. You wouldn't know energy costs are rising. You wouldn't know so many people had simply given up looking for work. You wouldn't know any of these things, and that's my first major problem with Obama's speech. He managed to give a State Of The Union speech without ever leveling with the American people about the actual state of the union.

The reason the President didn't level with the American people is simple – he wasn't giving a SOTU speech at all. He was giving his re-election speech. He was campaigning last night. What we witnessed was Obama's 2012 strategy.

Obama started out by giving our troops well-deserved congratulations for carrying out their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan:

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.

Yes, imagine what we could accomplish if we all worked together…and forget all about the fact that Obama and his Democratic party tried for years to LOSE the Iraq War when our President was named Bush.

Obama followed the above statement with this one:

Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

Okay, Mr. President, I am thinking about these things…and I can't help but remember that you are against school vouchers that would help the poorest kids in the worst schools attend better schools. I can't help but remember that your party opposed No Child Left Behind to measure school performance. I can't help but remember that you put the special interests of the teachers unions above all else. I can't help but remember how your party's anti-business, anti-wealth, anti-capitalist, high tax rhetoric and legislation does precisely the opposite of attracting high-tech, high-paying jobs to this country. I can't help but remember how you opposed energy independence by shooting down the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. I can't help but remember how your party opposes drilling in ANWR. Why aren't we "working together" on these things ??? Why is it only "working together" when you get what you want ?

Obama spoke of the promise of America:

…the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

Sure, Barry. Your Democrats pushed for higher home ownership for decades…and then when those policies blew up in all our faces and brought the economy to it's knees, you pretended you had nothing to do with it. Your Democrats created Social Security for our retirements…and then the government raided the Social Security Trust Fund, leaving us nothing but a bunch of IOU's to fund our retirements. And now you're doing the same thing to federal pension programs. Excuse me if I'm not overly impressed with the way we've been "working together" up until now.

As is Obama's habit, he splits the world into an "us vs. them" battle:

We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.

Liberals always lose me with this scarecrow tactic. On the heels of his "we should all work together" remarks, Obama immediately begins splitting us apart, putting the wealthy into one box and everyone else into another box. That's not how things actually work. In reality, we're all in the same box. For example, if Steve Jobs becomes a billionaire by creating and selling his products, that in turn creates jobs and prosperity for others. It creates economic growth and opportunity. That's how "everyone gets a fair shot". It's a symbiotic relationship, but liberals pretend the wealth of a person like Steve Jobs somehow comes at the expense of someone else. Liberals pretend Steve Jobs is somehow stealing from the poor. Their position is absurd and counterproductive.

Not everything in Obama's speech was wrong, however. He made some good points, and many of those points should be attractive to Republicans. In fact, entire segments of Obama's speech sounded like things Republicans have been saying for years, as follows:

…we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it…companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.

Correct, Mr. President. I've been telling your liberal brethren that for years. They never believe me. Hopefully, they will believe you. What are the President's specific plans ?:

First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America.

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making your products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

So my message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away.

Hmmm. That wasn't very specific, but it will play well. If the President wants Congress to "send me these tax reforms", it would be helpful if he spelled them out. Obama also co-opted the Republicans 'All Of The Above" position on energy.

No Obama speech would be complete without his usual basket of distortions and falsehoods. I don't call him the Great Prevaricator for nothing. Here are a few:

I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.

Facts – U.S. exports were $1.842 trillion in 2008 before Obama. U.S. exports were $1.837 trillion in 2010 (link). Doesn't sound like were "on track" to double exports to me.

On immigration, Obama said:

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

It's true that illegal border crossings are down, but it's the recession that accomplished it. Fewer illegals come here for jobs when there aren't any jobs.

Here's one that made me want to throw a brick at my television:

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our states with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

There’s never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren’t the only ones who were hurt.

Gee, if only we had spent some money on infrastructure during Obama's reign…like the $800 billion stimulus package that was passed !!! That was sold to us as "shovel ready projects" to rebuild our infrastructure, but it seems our infrastructure was NOT rebuilt with that money. Unbelievable.

Here's another example of Obama adopting a faux Republican stance in a pretense of bipartisanship:

There’s no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.

LOL. Obama as a regulation reducer ??? Not hardly. Here are the facts:

The report says the Obama administration has "imposed 75 new major regulations costing more than $380 billion over ten years." In addition, the report says there are 219 more "economically significant regulations" in the works which will cost businesses $100 million or more each year — for a minimum cost of $21 billion over ten years. The number of pages in the Federal Register, in which such rules are recorded, is increasing rapidly, the report says, and "pages devoted to final rules rose by 20 percent between 2009 and 2010, and proposed rules have increased from 2,044 in 2009 to 2,439 in 2010."

But the biggest laugh-out-loud line of all from the Great Prevaricator was this one:

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.

Ho-ly crap-salad. I can't believe he said that. Is this the same guy who has increased federal spending by $900 billion per year in only three years on the job ? Is this the same guy who created the largest new entitlement since Medicare ? Is this the same guy who passed an $800 stimulus ? Is this the same guy who proposes new federal spending for everything imaginable, and is running up record debt because of it ? Allow me to explain what liberals believe people cannot do for themselves. Liberals believe people can't feed themselves, house themselves, obtain medical care, save for their own retirements, choose a school for their kids to attend, choose what food to eat, choose a mortgage, pay for college, pay their energy bills, understand credit card terms, find a job without the government's help, invest wisely, etc, etc. I could go on and on. About the only thing liberals believe people CAN do for themselves is pay taxes. Outside of that, they think we're a bunch of helpless children who wouldn't know enough to come in out of the rain without the loving assistance of Big Brother.

If you want to know the true state of the union, you'll get a much more accurate picture from the Republican response to Obama's speech, from Gov. Mitch Daniels:

Voter ID frauds: A few weeks ago, I excoriated the Obama Justice Dept. for blocking South Carolina's voter ID law. Every time I mention voter ID laws, liberals tell me voter ID is racist (because voter ID is applied equally to all voters, by definition it cannot be racist). Liberals also tell me there is no voter fraud problem to justify the implementation of voter ID. As usual, liberals are lying:

South Carolina's attorney general has notified the U.S. Justice Department of potential voter fraud.

Attorney General Alan Wilson sent details of an analysis by the Department of Motor Vehicles to U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles.

In a letter dated Thursday, Wilson says the analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters listed as dead. In 71 percent of those cases, ballots were cast between two months and 76 months after the people died. That means they "voted" up to 6 1/3 years after their death.

Because voter ID laws would have prevented every one of these fraudulent votes by dead people, I'm left once again to conclude that liberals are in FAVOR of voter fraud. There is no other rational explanation for their position on the issue.
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On The Brink: The European Union announced an oil embargo against Iran in response to Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Iran's response:

Tensions in the Gulf could reach a breaking point as a senior Iranian official said Iran would “definitely” close the Strait of Hormuz if an EU oil embargo disrupted the export of crude oil, the semi-official Fars news agency reports.

The announcement came in response to a decision by the European Union on Monday to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

“The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

The Strait of Hormuz is the vital link between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

It is also one of the most strategic chokepoints in the world when it comes to oil transit.

With world oil output estimated at some 88 million barrels per day in 2011, the US Energy Information Administration estimated that some 17 million of those barrels passed through the Strait.

If economic sanctions sufficiently pressure Iran to retaliate by closing down the Strait, nearly 20 per cent of worldwide oil trade would be impacted, resulting in a massive spike in global energy costs.

However, with Washington’s decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU’s attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.

If Iran tries to close the Strait Of Hormuz, there will be war, period, and this time, it really will be what liberals have been crying wolf about for years, a "war for oil". The reality is, a closed Strait Of Hormuz would bring the west to it's knees economically. The United States will never allow that to happen.
===
Dismal State Of The Union: Here's an opinion/analysis piece from the Washington Times that hits the mark. Not much for me to add to it:

There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union. Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy. Not one little bit.

This guy is Barack Obama. He is not the least bit to blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy. George W. Bush is, for sure, and that evil Dick Cheney, oh, no doubt. House Speaker John A. Boehner — evil, too — is, of course, to blame. But guess what? So is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and every Democrat in the House and Senate.

Now, President Truman made it very clear: The buck stops with him. No passing the buck for that guy. But Mr. Obama blames everyone but himself. Mr. Bush, he says, left the nation in a ditch, a deep ditch, and he’s been digging out since he took office. And Congress? Those guys are just plain awful, he says. So mean. Wah, they won’t do anything I want done! Mr. Obama feels so sure about it that he’s basing his re-election campaign on bashing Capitol Hill.

But with the president delivering his State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday night, let’s pause here to take as hard look at the real state of America, by the numbers, using only cold, hard facts.

The unemployment rate when Mr. Obama was elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent — at least that’s the official number. In reality, the Financial Times writes, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”

In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.

Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.)

Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, with households now paying a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.

Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.

Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent. Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion. In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps. That’s 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.

Median household income has dropped nearly 7 percent in the last six years, taking inflation into account. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of males age 25 to 34 now live with their parents.

Low- and middle-income Americans 65 and older now hold more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26 percent since 2005. The average age of the American car is 10 years; in 1990, it was 6.5 years old (by the way, in 1985, Americans bought 11 million cars; in 2009, less than half that, 5.4 million).

On the macro side, America’s annual budget has jumped to $3.8 trillion — and yet the United States brings in only about $2.1 trillion in revenue. The U.S. trade deficit for 2011 was $558 billion. America’s total public debt stands at $15.23 trillion; in January 2009, the debt was $10.62 trillion. Mr. Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion in just one term — more debt than was amassed by all presidents from Washington through Bill Clinton combined. The debt is rising by $4.2 billion every day — $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.

So, America, that is the State of Your Union. But remember, Mr. Obama had not one thing to do with it. So don’t blame him when you go to the polls. Blame everyone else, especially yourself.

The era of big government is back with a vengeance, and has been for the last decade. The negative results are plain to see, and President Barack "The Buck Stops There" Obama is preparing to argue that the answer is…BIGGER government, where the lines between pubic and private enterprise are blurred even further. Heaven help us if we give this man a second term. American liberty hangs in the balance.

In trying to decide who should be our next President, we first have to ask if our current President deserves a second term. This should be based upon his performance in office, not on the political party to which he belongs.

Does Obama deserve a second term ?

Let's look at his record.

I have to start in February 2008, when then candidate Obama brought his campaign roadshow to Ohio. I went to see him speak at Youngstown State University. The three biggest cheers Obama received from Ohioans that day were when he 1) promised to rework NAFTA, 2) promised to close Guantanamo Bay within 12 months, and 3) promised to end the Iraq War in 2009.

Needless to say, none of those things happened. Obama never had any intention of reworking NAFTA. He forgot that promise the minute he left Ohio. As President, Obama has pushed for more free trade agreements, and recently signed free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Columbia. These were the largest free trade deals signed by the United States since NAFTA.

Guantanamo Bay is still open.

The Iraq War ended, but it ended under the timeline established by Obama's predecessor, President Bush. It definitely didn't end in 2009, as Obama promised Ohioans.

Obama lied to my face and to every Ohioan that day in 2008. An inauspicious start. I knew he was lying then, that he was the kind of guy who would tell people whatever they wanted to hear in order to become President. I don't trust those kinds of politicians, which is why I voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. Obama was not only as inexperienced a politico as any who ever ran for President, with zero prior management experience, but he was dishonest as well. I did what I could to defeat him, but alas, it didn't work, and now we're in the toilet.

Obama did keep some of his 2008 promises to Ohioans, like ObamaCare. He also promised to increase federal spending by $874 billion per year that day at Youngstown State, though he didn't put it into those words, because the electorate would have had a negative reaction to that type of honesty. Instead of putting price tags on his spending binge, Obama made all sorts of promises about "investing" in this, that, and almost everything, while never mentioning the costs. This President has never met any spending he doesn't like. Obama has "accomplished" every bit of his spending increase promise, which leads me to the primary reason we shouldn't give Obama a second term in office…he is the most fiscally irresponsible President in American history, bar none.

We have had annual deficits over $1 trillion ever year Obama has been in office. He has run up $4.6 trillion in debt in only 3 years in office. This far outpaces the previous "most fiscally irresponsible" President, George W. Bush, who ran up $4.8 trillion in debt over 8 years in office. Anybody who would vote for a second Obama term after such a record should have his/her head examined. The only people who should be supporting Obama's fiscal recklessness are citizens of China, who stand to gain from our destruction.

And what has all Obama's fiscal insanity accomplished ??? Unemployment is STILL at 8.5%, and it has been over 9% for the majority of Obama's presidency. If you recall, it was 7.6% when Obama took office. We have a huge net job loss during Obama's reign, though to hear him tell it, he is creating all kinds of jobs. That's one reason of many I call him the Great Prevaricator. Unemployment was mostly in the 5% range when Bush was President. Great job, Barry. Not only are you spending us into oblivion and wrecking the future of our country, but we aren't even gaining any temporary benefit from it now. You have managed to be the worst of both worlds. Most amazingly of all, the new ObamaCare spending hasn't even kicked in yet. That starts in full force in 2014. Federal spending is already the highest in the history of the country (barring WWII), and Obama's BIG spending program hasn't even started yet. We are borrowing 43 cents of every dollar the federal government spends WITHOUT ObamaCare spending in place. Imagine what it will be AFTER ObamaCare.

While I'm on the subject of ObamaCare, let's not forget that the Obama admimistration lied about it's costs and effects on the debt. The Great Prevaricator claims ObamaCare will decrease the debt, but he made that calculation by having the CBO measure ten years of revenue against only six years of benefits. That is profoundly dishonest, and sadly typical of the way our government misleads us.

Then the Great Prevaricator has the audacity to pretend increasing taxes on the rich by 5% is going to pay for all his crazy spending increases. That may be his most egregious lie of all. There is NO WAY his numbers come anywhere close to adding up, but I rarely hear a peep about this from the mainstream media. Perhaps there would be a few more media types peeping if 90% of them weren't Democrats. We'd be hearing the truth about the high speed rail to fiscal destruction we are on if the President was a Republican. Of that I have no doubt, but when a Democrat sits in the catbird seat, all we hear about is taxing the rich. I hate to break it to you America, but everyone's taxes will have to go through the roof in one way or another to pay for all this spending and government growth. Those are the facts, even though your illustrious media doesn't want to clue you in to the facts. The prevarication goes far beyond just the White House.

Somebody will also have to explain to me exactly how we are supposed to create jobs in this country going forward when our government spending and taxation levels, our unpaid-for entitlement explosion, and our building Mount Everest of debt are going to drain our pocketbooks and decrease consumer demand for generations to come. How does that work, exactly ??? The unvarnished facts there are, it DOESN'T work. At all. It would be real nice if we had a President who would level with us about these things, rather than the performing circus clown we have in office now.

Just say NO-bama. Change starts at the top. Obama has had his chance, and he failed miserably. It's time to try someone else.

Alternately, you could oppose Mitt Romney and support Obama's reign of destruction because Romney's a Mormon, Romney worked for Bain Capital, or because Romney changed his position on abortion and health care…..but that would make you somewhat of a self-destructive fool, wouldn't it ? We already KNOW Obama is a failure. Romney hasn't had his chance yet. If Romney turned out to be as bad as Obama, we'd be breaking even. But there's a very good chance Romney's policies would be better for the country. I don't know about the rest of you, but when my car falls apart and won't run, I don't try to keep driving it. I get a new one. 2012 is definitely the time for a new car. The Obama-mobile is a lemon.

One of my biggest problems with liberals is their predilection to manufacture phony, if not downright absurd, political arguments. Today's post is about one of those phony arguments, the left's outrageous phony outrage over state voter ID laws.

President Obama's Justice Dept. has blocked the state of South Carolina from implementing it's voter ID law, which would require voters to present photo identification at the polling place prior to voting. This is a pretty curious move, seeing as how 31 states already have some form of voter ID law in place, and seeing as how the Supreme Court has already rejected a challenge to the Indiana voter ID law, with the liberal Justice Stephens writing the majority opinion in that case. Here's what Stephens wrote about the reasons for voter ID laws in the Indiana case:

…flagrant examples of such [voter] fraud in other parts of the country have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists, that occasional examples have surfaced in recent years, and that Indiana's own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor – though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud – demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.

There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State's interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters. Moreover, the interest in orderly administration and accurate recordkeeping provides a sufficient justification for carefully identifying all voters participating in the election process. While the most effective method of preventing election fraud may well be debatable, the propriety of doing so is perfectly clear.

That's it in a nutshell. Voter ID laws help prevent voter fraud, and we all want our elections to be honest…or at least most of us do. Many liberals, in their typical phony manner, attempt to redefine the issue and cast it in racial terms. Here's one example, from that left-wing rag, The Nation. Listen to how they recast the issue:

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) took an important step in combating the epidemic of Republican vote suppression efforts on Friday. DOJ blocked a South Carolina law requiring voters to present photo identification, because the law would disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters.

Notice how The Nation magically transforms "voter ID" into "voter suppression". Presto Change-o, and Voila!, with one misleading liberal sentence we now have a phony liberal manufactured controversy.

There are so many things wrong with the liberal stance here that it almost isn't worth listing them, but I will anyway. First of all, the voter ID laws don't apply only to minorities. They apply to ALL VOTERS, thus they are not discriminatory. Second, the voter ID states offer the ID's for free, thus there is no poverty excuse for liberals to cite. Third, we show ID's for all kinds of things, and no liberal groups are raising arguments of discrimination or disenfranchisement in these other areas. Here are some examples of when Americans are required to show ID – when cashing a check, when opening a bank account, when purchasing alcohol, when purchasing cigarettes, when purchasing a firearm, when using a credit card, when entering a nightclub, when going to an R-rated movie, when renting a DVD, when boarding a plane, when applying for a passport, when entering government buildings, when picking up a package from the Post Office, when renting a car, when receiving a driver's license, when buying a house, when going through Customs, when entering the White House…

Are minorities being "disenfranchised" in all the above instances I cited ? Of course not. Only a nut would think so…so why all the liberal hullaballoo over voter ID laws ? There is no rational explanation, but there are some explanations, albeit dark and ugly ones. Because voter ID laws are not in the least discriminatory, despite the phony claims of liberals, there must be other reasons for liberals to detest them. Here's the list of possibilities I came up with…

1. Liberals are afraid they will lose the illegal votes that usually go to Democrats.
2. Liberals want to rig elections by sending illegal voters to the polls. They are angry that their attempts at voter fraud are being thwarted.
3. Liberals think minorities are inferior, and cannot be held to the same standards as others.
4. Liberals will never miss a chance to cast Republicans as racists, no matter how baseless the charge.

Sick stuff, but these are the only explanations for the phony liberal outrage that I can see. All other liberal excuses are as thin as a reed, and the real outrage here is that the U.S. Justice Dept. is actually trying to block states from preventing voter fraud. And what a coincidence it is that Obama's Justice Dept. is acting now, when our very next election decides Obama's future as President. Welcome to the Obama-nation, kiddies, where up is down, fair is unfair, and division is unity. The Great Prevaricator has struck again.

President Obama is urging Republicans to pass a two-month extension compromise of his payroll tax cut. From the White House:

In the afternoon, the President will continue to urge House Republicans to do what’s right for the American people by allowing a vote on the short term bipartisan compromise passed by almost the entire Senate. If Congress fails to extend the payroll tax cut, the typical family making $50,000 a year will have about $40 less to spend or save with each paycheck.

The President is also pulling at heartstrings:

Obama will point people to a new section of the White House website where they can “share what a $40 paycheck means to them.” In addition, he’ll urge them to make use of a new Twitter hashtag, #40dollars.

The White House has also rounded up a group of citizens “who would see their taxes go up” to appear alongside Obama. Unclear if they’ll recite their assuredly heart-rending tales of prospective woe.

Republicans don't want the two-month extension. They are saying they want the payroll tax extension to last another year, which makes a lot more sense than a two-month extension.

This is all the usual partisan dance, of course, but what I find interesting is when Democrats go on record supporting tax cuts. You see, Democrats are generally the party that increases taxes. Republicans are generally the party that cuts taxes (and Democrats howl every time they do). Obama has turned that reality on it's head, which to me is an acknowledgement by the head Democrat that tax increases DO have a negative effect on people's lives. Obama is in effect advocating a REPUBLICAN position on taxes, thus admitting that the Republicans have been right all along. Obama is admitting that tax cuts stimulate the economy, just as Republicans have said all along. Obama is admitting that tax cuts increase demand, just as Republicans have said all along. Obama is obviously correct about these things. It's basic mathematics. If you have more money in your pocket (via less taxes), you will spend more. It's that simple, so I wonder why Democrats have devoted so much time and energy to denying it ??? Obama has ripped away the ongoing Democrat lie about tax cuts. I only wonder if he realizes he's done it, and how is he going to switch gears and start defending the huge tax increases he proposes starting in 2013 ??? That should be some magic trick. Only the Great Prevaricator has a snowball's chance of pulling it off (with the reality-blurring help of his fawning, Democrat-dominated mainstream media). Should be interesting.

Under the Democratic vision for this country, the only way out of our economic mess is enormous tax increases, precisely the opposite of what Obama is trying to feed us with his payroll tax cut. Let's start with Obama's own ten-year budget proposal, which assumed all the Bush tax cuts would expire. That would be a $3.8 trillion tax increase right there (and Obama's ten-year plan STILL added $8-9 trillion to the debt over a decade). Nothing like having huge tax increases AND a $20 trillion debt, eh ? But maybe the Democrats will abandon that plan, and only promote repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich, thereby bringing in a whopping $75 billion per year to address our trillion dollar deficits. My calculator says that math doesn't add up at all, but Democrats keep pretending it does. It seems to be their main (phony) talking point, so it must be fooling somebody. "Fair shares" and all that rot.

The Democrats have all kinds of tax increases up their sleeve. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has even proposed paying for Obama's payroll tax cut with a, drumroll please,…TAX INCREASE. Weird:

…Harry Reid's plan to finance a one-year payroll tax cut with a 3.25% income tax surcharge on upper-income Americans that would last for at least 10 years. Mr. Reid knows it can't pass the House, and as we went to press it looked likely to fail even in the Senate.

Reid's plan won't pass the House or Senate, but Democrats like it for it's class warfare value. "Fair shares" and all.

Who would Reid's tax increase affect ??? Here's who:

Mr. Reid's surcharge—which would hit incomes of $1 million and above—would slam small business job creators. Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that taxpayers will declare about $1.2 trillion of business income in 2013. Only a fraction of those small business owners and Subchapter S companies will have a net income above $1 million, but Joint Tax finds that 34% of that $1.2 trillion is on tax returns with "modified AGI [adjusted gross income] in excess of $1 million." This means about $400 billion of business income would be subject to Mr. Reid's profits surtax.

Mr. Obama's own Treasury Department examined 2007 IRS data and found 392,000 returns with incomes above $1 million. Some 311,00, or more than three out of four, were classified by Treasury as "business owners." Perhaps Democrats can explain how taking money from employers is going to lead them to hire more workers.

We're back to the old Democrat snake oil, where Dems pretend they can fix the economy and create jobs by increasing taxes on the job creators. Duh. Liberal Democrats are good at class warfare, but not so good at implementing policies that will create jobs, which is what really helps the economy. Tricking Americans into believing Democrats are for the "little guy" seems to be their priority, even if the Dem policies end up hurting the little guy the most by eliminating jobs. If the choice is between handouts from Democrats or a job, this little guy will take the job every day of the week and twice on sunday.

Imagine a little over a year from now. 2013 arrives, unemployment is still over 8%, and the national debt is over $16 trillion. Obama is re-elected (cringe) to a second term. Is he really prepared to increase taxes by trillions of dollars ? Is he then prepared to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion more to implement ObamaCare ? Is he really prepared to nuke the economy all over again as it struggles to regain it's footing ? Everything I hear from the Democratic leadership says "Yes We Can". Every fiber of my being says "You Better Not".

I spent the last week in Las Vegas, where I purposely avoided television, the internet, talk radio, and newspapers. I didn't even check in on my own blog. All things political were jettisoned from my life for an entire week. It was fantastic. I'd be quite happy to remove politics from my life completely, but alas, I cannot…not while the systematic destruction of the U.S. Constitution is underway in this country…not while the fascists leading our government are hell-bent on destroying the underpinnings of American liberty…not while our so-called leaders are busy destroying our collective economic future. I can't simply sit back and ignore these things, much as I'd like to.

It seems I missed a lot in my week away. On the plus side, the Iraq War ended. Thank goodness for that. I'm happy our troops are finally coming home, even if warmongering politicians like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are not happy. That war should never have been waged. It took the lives of 4,500 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis to get rid of the evil Saddam Hussein. There had to be a better way.

On the down side, the Bill Of Rights is about to take another big hit. The House voted in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), 283-136, which eliminates the Due Process clause from the Bill Of Rights. The NDAA would allow Americans to be detained indefinitely without trial, and President Obama made sure Americans were included in the "you don't have no stinking rights !" group:

As [Senator Carl] Levin (D-MI) said last week, it was the White House itself that demanded Section 1031 apply to American citizens.

“The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved...and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” said Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Obama was insistent on nullifying the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, a curious position to take for a man who is allegedly an expert in Constitutional Law. Then again, Obama already has a history of ignoring the Constitution, as he did when he perverted the Commerce Clause by signing ObamaCare into law. The President is not alone in wanting to discard those quaint old rights found in our Constitution. 93 of his fellow Democrats also voted to discard them by voting for the NDAA. This is what Democrats means when they talk about a "living" or "evolving" Constitution. They mean they want to destroy it when it gets in the way of their political goals.

Even more interesting is the way the alleged limited government advocates on the Republican side of the aisle voted. The small government Constitution-adhering GOPers in the House voted FOR the NDAA by a margin of 190-43. What a bunch of phonies. Here's the money quote from Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC):

“It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next,” remarked Graham. “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.’”

And here I thought Kim Jong Il died. Guess not. He's a Senator from South Carolina. We should build a Lindsay Graham Memorial in D.C. with the words "Shut up. You don't get a lawyer" inscribed on it to inspire future generations of fascist Americans.

The only bad thing about voting the totalitarian Obama out of office is that one of these Graham-like Republicans will probably take his place, assuming Ron Paul (R-TX) can't win the GOP nomination, which he probably can't, despite the fact that he's currently leading in Iowa.

When the Great Prevaricator, Obama, isn't eliminating our Constitutional rights, he's busy regulating us into submission. The Great Prevaricator does this while simultaneously pretending that the GOP wants to strip away all regulations and turn the country into the Wild West all over again. Obama says the Republicans want "dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance" to cover up for the fact that regulations have exploded during Obama's tenure in the Oval Office. The Wall Street Journal exposes the truth:

A lack of regulations is not the problem, despite what the Great Prevaricator would have us believe. Our problem is the control freak nature of the Obama administration.

Coming next, those skyrocketing electricity rates Obama promised us a few years ago:

In the next few days, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue another final regulation directed at electricity utilities. This rule, known as the Utility MACT, will impose an estimated $11 billion each year in new costs on our economy. It will threaten electricity-generating capacity in many parts of the country. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this administration’s runaway rulemaking.

Obama's three-step plan for our economy is 1) Regulate 2) Control 3) Repeat.

And it doesn't matter how many jobs it costs us. It doesn't matter how negative are the effects on the economy. Those like Obama will use the negative effects of their policies to call for yet more control, more regulation, and less Constitutional restrictions on their power. That's the way totalitarians roll.

Newt Watch: With Gingrich leading in the Republican primary polls, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) threatened to release a thousand pages of material from Gingrich's 90's ethics investigation. Unfortunately for Mrs. Pelosi, Gingrich quickly pointed out that it would be a violation of House ethics rules were Pelosi to release that information. Oops. How ironic. Caught with her pants down, Pelosi is now backtracking, and trying to say she didn't say what she said.

I mentioned before on this blog that Gingrich pled to one House ethics violation in the 90's, though Gingrich contended he didn't do anything wrong. There was a question about funding for a class Gingrich taught being a violation of that organization's tax-exempt status. The House ethics investigation was widely reported. What I didn't report before, and what was not widely reported, was that the IRS subsequently cleared the organization, and thus Gingrich, of all wrongdoing. From the Washington Post:

The Internal Revenue Service has cleared an organization of charges that it violated its tax-exempt status when it helped fund a college course taught by former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the organization said yesterday.

The IRS, concluding a three-year investigation, ruled that the Progress and Freedom Foundation's donations to Gingrich were "consistent with its stated exempt purposes," and Gingrich's course and course book "were educational in content."

In its ruling, the IRS said the content of Gingrich's course "was educational and never favored or opposed a candidate for public office."

It said the foundation "did not intervene on behalf of candidates of the Republican Party merely by promoting" themes in the course.

Funny how Pelosi didn't mention that. Must have slipped her mind.

Presidential Polling: With Ohio being a key election swing state, a new Quinnipiac poll is pretty interesting. Quinnipiac has Gingrich leading Romney in the Ohio GOP primary, but both Gingrich and Romney lead Obama in Ohio, though the numbers are very close. The swing state poll also included Florida and Pennsylvania:

Florida: Romney with 45 percent to Obama's 42 percent; Obama at 46 percent to Gingrich's 44 percent.
Ohio: Romney at 43 percent to Obama's 42 percent; Gingrich with 43 percent to Obama's 42 percent.
Pennsylvania: Obama edging Romney 46 – 43 percent; Obama tops Gingrich 48 – 40 percent

As of today, the presidency is in play.

The Class Warfare Speech: President Obama gave his class warfare speech a couple days ago in Kansas. The speech included Obama's recurrent theme that everything is the Republicans fault. Same old, same old. Basically, Obama said America was losing it's middle class, and that Republicans think "we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules". I always thought fending for yourself was a basic requirement in life, but I guess not, according to Obama. The President gave us a brief history lesson on the decline of the American middle class, which he attributed to "inequality"…and the Republicans, of course:

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them – that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

More fundamentally, this kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try. We tell people that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, hard work can get you into the middle class; and that your children will have the chance to do even better than you. That’s why immigrants from around the world flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. A few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance fell to around 40%. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a 1 in 3 chance of making it to the middle class.

So, from the 50's until today, the middle class has been steadily slipping away, along with opportunity in America, according to Obama. He contends this has happened because we haven't had ENOUGH government, that the Republicans' "on your own" economic philosophy is the culprit. Does this strike anyone else as being extremely disingenuous, and exactly the opposite of what has really happened over the last 50 years ? Over the last half-century, there has been an unprecedented explosion in government spending, anti-poverty programs, and entitlements. The number of government subsidy programs has been soaring. There hasn't been any "on your own" philosophy in play at all. It's been just the opposite. Bigger and bigger government has been the trend. The size of the federal government has doubled every ten years. That sure doesn't sound like "on your own" to me. If Obama wants to equate a disappearing middle class with the activities of the government, that sure isn't an indictment of small government. It's an indictment of big government, the kind Obama promotes.

What policies would Obama pursue to rid ourselves of this inequality and foundering middle class ? More government, of course. He'd return tax rates to Clintonian levels for the wealthy (which would barely make a dent in the deficit much less end income inequality). He'd have the government invest (spend) more on education, infrastructure, and new technology (I guess this is supposed to stand in opposition to all those crazy right-wingers who are against education, infrastructure, and new technology, though I don't know any of those people, because they don't exist outside Obama's imagination). And he'd create more regulations and more entitlements. That's his entire plan. More of the very same things we've been doing for the last 50 years, the very same things that are bankrupting us. Brilliant.

Four months ago, one of the largest Tea Party groups, Freedomworks, created a Tea Party Debt Commission to address the red ink in which this country is drowning. Because our current non-leader is doing nothing but fiddling while Rome burns, I'm happy to present the results of the Tea Party's work, the Tea Party Budget.

Here's what the Tea Party Budget will do to our debt picture in comparison to non-leader Obama's non-plan, and in comparison to the House GOP plan.

The ten year Tea Party Budget plan would balance the budget in four years, and then start paying off the debt, reducing it to 75% of GDP by 2021 (as opposed to non-leader Obama's Greece-like 120%). Gone would be the trillion+ dollar deficits. Gone would be America's high-speed rail to fiscal destruction. Gone would be the crippling of our children's futures.

And the Tea Party does it without raising taxes.

Here are some of the features:

“Cuts, caps, and balances” federal spending.

Balances the budget in four years, and keeps it balanced, without tax hikes.

Closes an historically large budget gap, equal to almost one-tenth of our economy.

Reduces federal spending by $9.7 trillion over the next 10 years, as opposed to the President’s plan to increase spending by $2.3 trillion.

Shrinks the federal government from 24 percent of GDP — a level exceeded only in World War II— to about 16 percent, in line with the postwar norm.

Stops the growth of the debt, and begins paying it down, with a goal of eliminating it within thisgeneration.To achieve these goals, our plan, among other things:

Repeals ObamaCare in toto.

Eliminates four Cabinet agencies — Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD — and reduces or privatizes many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

Ends farm subsidies, government student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don’t support us— luxuries we can no longer afford.

Saves Social Security and greatly improves future benefits by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART Accounts.

Gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the Congressional health care plan.

Suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.

The Tea Party budget contains a Balanced Budget Amendment to prevent future Obama-like non-leaders from embarking on courses of fiscal lunacy. It makes the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Here's a very brief description of what is wrong with our federal government:

At the root of these problems is our own federal government — its size, its reach, and many of its policies. Washington is simply too big. Our government is doing too many things it can’t do well, or shouldn’t do at all, with money it doesn’t have. We are borrowing 43 cents of every dollar we spend. Waste and duplication abound. A report published this past March by the Government Accountability Office counted no fewer than 47 job training programs, 56 financial literacy programs, 80 economic development programs, 18 food assistance programs, 20 programs for the homeless, 82 teacher-quality programs spread across 10 agencies, and more than 2,100 data centers. All told, we have nearly 2,200 federal programs. What human being could ever know or monitor them all? Who’s minding this mess?

Perhaps the best summation of this lamentable state of affairs came at our field hearing in Indianapolis,from a young lady named Chloe Minor, age 15: “Government today is making a mess of things. My generation has absolutely no say in the matter. Each of us owes over $44,000 to pay off the national debt. It is obvious to me what is needed in this country is some teenage supervision!”

Yes, when our federal government acts more irresponsibly than any random 10-year old, perhaps teenage supervision is called for. The federal government is a monstrous bureaucratic maze of waste, propped up solely by the continuing rape of hard-working taxpayers. There will NEVER be enough money to feed the ravenous maw of ideologically-driven non-leaders like Obama. The only sane course of action is to rein in our own government. Otherwise, we're headed for the same fiscal collapse that is now threatening Europe. Who could possibly want to follow that path ?

Contrast the Tea Party budget with the failure of the Not-So-Super Committee's weak efforts:

..if the Super Committee succeeds, it will reduce spending by about $1.2 trillion over the next decade, from a steeply rising baseline. Our plan, by contrast, would reduce spending by eight times that amount, $9.7 trillion. Or to put it in percentageterms, assuming they meet their full charge without gimmicks or double-counting, the Super Committee plan would slightly reduce ten-year spending from $44 trillion to $43 trillion, a 2.3 percent trim. Our plan would reduce ten-year spending from $44 trillion to $34 trillion, a 23 percent reduction.

This is what is needed to get our nation off the financial suicide train.

The Tea Party budget was based upon principles in the Tea Party's Contract From America platform, as follows:

1. Protect the Constitution
2. Reject Cap & Trade
3. Demand a Balanced Budget
4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
6. End Runaway Government Spending
7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-Run Health Care
8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy
9. Stop the Pork
10.Stop the Tax Hikes

All the savings details are too long for me to list here, but you can find all the details at the Tea Party Budget link above.

Because no balanced budget or debt reduction is possible without touching the third rail of politics, the Tea Party budget does address Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Here's what they do with Social Security:

The Challenge. Social Security is going broke, and beginning about 25 years from now will only have enough funds to pay about 75 percent of promised benefits. Benefits are also comparatively meager, and cannot be passed down to one’s heirs, should one die before reaching retirement age.

Our Answer. Successful experiments have proved that we can make this program sustainable and actually improve benefits. How? By harnessing the power of compound interest.Three decades ago, Chile embarked on a bold transformation of its retirement security system. Today, that system is the envy of the world, giving seniors far better benefits than the old, government-run system ever did. Soon after the Chilean reform got underway, three Texas county governments opted out of Social Security in favor of personal accounts. Today, county workers in those three jurisdictions retire with much more money and have significantly more generous death and disability supplemental benefits than do Social Security participants. And those three counties—unlike almost all others in the U.S.—face no long-term unfunded pension liabilities. All state and local governments should have the option of opting into the “Galveston model.” And all young people should have the option of opting into a better future with personal accounts like those found in Chile. The Tea Party Budget embraces the Chilean/Galveston approach, specifically by enacting a modified version of Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) SMART Act. That bold reform allows new workers born after 1981 to invest one-half of their payroll taxes (7.65%) in a SMART Account, which they can use to fund their retirement and health care costs in retirement. If they prefer, they can give up their account and opt back into traditional Social Security at retirement.Thanks to this modern approach, our plan:

Improves benefits.
Doesn’t increase the retirement age.
Doesn’t means-test benefits.
Doesn’t cut benefits for people in or nearing retirement.
Doesn’t touch the existing Social Security Disability Insurance program.
Shores up the long-term solvency of traditional Social Security by slowing the growth of benefits (with “progressive price indexing”).
This reform — which we expect to be very popular — reduces federal payroll tax receipts by about $500 billion over the ten-year period—an excellent investment on a better system, and one that is fully paid for in this plan.

This would mark the beginning of the end for the government-run S.S. scam. No longer would the government be able to steal your retirement funds, then turn around and jack up your payroll taxes in Ponzi-like fashion to cover up their misdeeds. I not only say "yes", I say "hell yes !"

There's lot more to say here, but this is getting rather lengthy. I urge you all to read the details of the Tea Party budget. It's the best plan I've heard to date for fixing this mess, though there's still some room for improvement. Maybe I'll address more aspects of the budget in a future post.

One other interesting note. After the Tea Party produced their plan, they were going to present their recommendations to Congress…until the Senate Rules Committee, headed up by Chuck The Schmuck Schumer (D-NY), took away their microphones and locked them out minutes before the hearing was scheduled to start. Fascist jerk.

While the Occupy movement sits around in drum circles spouting inanities like "Capitalism Is Evil" and "Abolish Money", the Tea Party is actually doing work and coming up with solutions. The only problem I see with the Tea Party people is, there aren't enough of them…YET.

In reference to cutting government spending, President Obama likes to say we should use a "scalpel" instead of a "machete".

Obama couldn't be more wrong. We should be using a howitzer instead of a machete on government spending. Using a scalpel just ain't gonna git her done, because we're on an unsustainable fiscal path straight to economic hell.

Unfortunately, we have two political parties of big spenders. We just witnessed the complete failure of 12 members of those big spending parties (the Not-So-Super Committee) to agree on $1.2 trillion in future cuts to future spending increases. The game those two parties played was, they both made offers they knew the other side would reject, then after the Super Committee failed, they both hoped to gain politically by blaming the other side. This is how our leading politicians act when the future of America is on the line. They look after themselves and their party instead of the people. If the two parties, can't even agree on something so minor, what hope is there they will ever implement the changes necessary to put this country back on a sustainable fiscal path ?

It seems the worst thing that can happen in Washington D.C. is for one party to gain complete power.

When Obama and the Democrats gained complete control in 2009-2010, they rammed through unprecedented spending increases and created the largest new entitlement program (ObamaCare) since the creation of Medicare in 1965. They did this with the full knowledge that our current entitlement programs were unsustainable. They did this despite warnings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that ObamaCare would bend the health care cost curve up instead of down. They did this despite the fact that Medicare was already our largest unsustainable entitlement liability going forward, the single biggest future government expense. ObamaCare will add trillions in new spending, and add tens of millions of people to the Medicaid rolls when the states are already struggling to pay for existing Medicaid spending. The Democrats did this when the country was in a major recession with unemployment at 9%. The Democrats made our unsustainable entitlement picture even more unsustainable, and they did it against the will of the American public. The Democrats also made trillion dollar plus deficits routine, and Obama has run up debt faster than any other American president in history. We just passed the $15 trillion debt mark, with no signs of the red ink slowing. Democrat control was a complete and utter failure.

Prior to Obama, we had President Bush and the Republicans in complete control from 2001-2006. What were the results when the so-called "conservative" party was in power ? Massive spending increases, an unnecessary war, and…a new entitlement program (Medicare Part D, the Prescription Drug program) !!! Defense and social spending both rose rapidly under Bush, and Bush accumulated $5 trillion in debt over eight years. Federal spending skyrocketed during the Bush years. If this is what we're calling "conservative" these days, no thank you. Real inflation-adjusted military spending is twice what it was a decade ago, yet the "conservative" Republicans are resisting major defense cuts, as are the Pentagon and the Obama administration. The leading Republican presidential contenders are all acting like hawks, and so is the Obama administration.

It's time for a major reality check for both political parties. While they play their partisan reindeer games, America is going down the tubes. We literally can't afford all this government spending any longer. We can't tax our way out of the problem, and we sure as hell can't "tax the rich" to pay for it all, which is the canard the Democrats keep pimping. Reversing the Bush tax cuts for the rich would add maybe $75 billion in new revenue over the next year. How does that address our $1.2 trillion deficit ? It doesn't. The Democrats are talking economic gobbledygook, and even though the American people agree with increasing taxes on the wealthy, it doesn't get us anywhere near to solving our economic sustainability problem. Not to mention that increasing taxes during this Great Recession would be galactically stupid and take even more money out of the hands of struggling American taxpayers and job creators. Lots of those "rich" people are business owners. The Democrats need to be reminded that those are the people who employ workers. Putting more expenses on their backs will only make matters worse. We're losing enough jobs as it is already.

It's time to refocus our Defense budget on what it is supposed to be for, DEFENSE…of America, not the defense of every country around the world. We can't afford to be the world's policeman any longer. This should be pretty obvious when the federal government is borrowing 43 cents of every dollar it spends. We can't justify spending $900 billion on the military when our Social Security and Medicare programs aren't funded. What does that say about our priorities ? The Republicans need to get off the neocon bandwagon already and admit this. It's indefensible, no pun intended.

The only way to get spending in line is to address the main drivers of current and future spending, and those are – Defense, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and interest payments. Here is a pie chart of the 2012 federal budget:

From the above chart, we see that defense, entitlements (health care/pensions/welfare), and interest consume a whopping 88% of the federal budget. Even if Rick Perry could remember all three of the federal departments he wants to close, that 88% in spending would still remain, and nothing would change. Interest payments may seem relatively small at 6%, but they are growing so fast due to our massive deficits/debt that if we don't get our budget under control, the CBO estimates interest payments will soar to $800 billion per year by 2020. That is a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to flush down the toilet, money that could be used for other things, such as Social Security, Medicare, etc. Our unrestrained debt is stealing the future away. Obama and Congress are doing a great job, but only if the goal IS to destroy the country. Otherwise, we need some major changes, and we need them very soon. It's a shame that all we seem to get is the same old partisan rhetoric leading to nowhere, the same old false choices, the same old entrenched interests, the same old choices of Democrat poison or Republican poison. I'd say we deserve better than that, but I'm not sure we do.

Some day people may realize that the libertarian impulses were right, but I fear it will be too late by then. Many people seem to believe the ideas of limiting government and maximizing liberty are too radical, which actually makes me laugh (instead of cry) considering how extremely radical our current fiscal picture has become. How can things get more radical than pursuing policies of national economic suicide ??? It boggles my mind, as does the massive entitlement mentality that has taken over much of this country. We've become warring special interests instead of a united people. That is something else that has to change before we can hope to address our problems. I'm not optimistic.

Good luck, America. You're going to need it.

Obama Fails Geography And Economics:

Here's President Obama answering a question about budget cuts during a press conference in Honolulu, Hawaii last week:

"When I meet with world leaders, what's striking — whether it's in Europe or here in Asia — the kinds of fundamental reforms and changes, both on the revenue side and the public pension side, that other countries are having to make are so much more significant than what we need to do in order to get our books in order".

Three things. First – Hawaii, our 50th state (out of 57 or 58 states, according to Obama), is obviously not in Asia. You'd think Obama would know this, seeing as how he was born in Hawaii and lived there for about 13 years. Second – if Obama believes the needed U.S. budget changes to "get our books in order" are not so "significant"…then why can't we make them ? Third – how scary is it that we have a President who believes $1.3 trillion deficits and $15 trillion in national debt is not "significant" ? The federal government is borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it spends. I'd sure call that significant.

I hope the Birthers don't start citing this as Obama admitting he was born in Asia. As Obama's grandmother has already stated, Obama was born in Kenya (which must be somewhere outside Honolulu). In related news, President George W. Bush, the famous Texan, was born in Connecticut. Senator John McCain, Obama's 2008 presidential opponent, was born in the Panama Canal zone, and was born again hard in Vietnam. Obama's prior military experience consisted of playing with a G.I. Joe doll as a child.
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Obama's Head Start BS:

As part of his "we can't wait" initiative to bypass the "do-nothing" Republicans in Congress, Obama has taken the initiative to implement a Head Start program:

“The Republicans in Washington are trying to gut our investments in education. … We can’t wait to give our youngest children the same basic opportunities we give all children,” [Obama] told the assembled cameras and reporters.

White House officials billed the campaign event as another opportunity to highlight the 2012 campaign’s ‘We Can’t Wait” theme. That theme seeks to portray the president as actively helping Americans while partisan, self-interested Republicans block beneficial government action.

There's one teensy, weensy little problem with Obama's "it's the Republicans fault" narrative here. The Head Start program Obama is talking about was already made law…by the Republicans:

[Obama is] actually implementing a modest children’s education reform signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush in 2007.

The event “is a photo-op for the implementation of a law that has already passed,” said John Hood, director of the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina.

The Bush-signed reform is titled the “Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act.” The reform law was unanimously approved by the [Republican-controlled] Senate and overwhelmingly supported by the [Republican-controlled] House of Representatives 381 to 36, before it was signed by Bush in December 2007…The reform has been underway for more than three years, and the first changes to grant holders [they may be changed if they underperform] may be announced next month.

Oops. Another perfectly good Obama fiction goes out the window.

But at least the little children are going to be helped, right ?

Not according to a study conducted by the Obama administration:

“The advantages children gained during their Head Start and age four years yielded only a few statistically significant differences in outcomes at the end of 1st grade for the sample as a whole,” concluded a Health and Human Services study of almost 5,000 kids. The study, released by the Obama administration in January 2010, is titled the “Head Start Impact Study.”

The federal government has spent more than $100 billion on the program since 1965

A 2006 study by the Brookings Institute reached this conclusion:

"Head Start "has no demonstrable impact on [students'] academic, socio-emotional, or health status at the end of first grade. That's right. If you were a mother who lost the lottery, couldn't get your child into Head Start, and had to care for her at home, she was no worse off at the end of first grade than she would have been had she gotten into Head Start."

Nothing like wasting a $100 billion on a program that doesn't work.

But these are mere facts, and we don't need no stinking facts when Obama has an election to win and Americans to mislead.

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Gabrielle Giffords' Great Idea:

A few days before Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was wounded in an attack by a crazed liberal anarchist metalhead druggie burnout (in other words, it was Sarah Palin's fault), Rep. Giffords proposed that Congress slash it's pay by 5%. Now, she is reminding the Super Committee of that proposal as the Committee discusses ways to trim $1.2 trillion from future spending increases. Cutting the pay of Congress would save $50 million over ten years.

In a letter to the debt-reduction supercommittee organized by Giffords’ Washington office, 25 lawmakers urged the supercommittee to cut lawmakers’ salaries to reduce the federal deficit.

The letter, sent Thursday and signed by 11 Republicans and 14 Democrats, said a paycut would be a “commonsense” way to cut the required $1.5 trillion from the federal budget, as well as “a powerful message to the American people that Congress should not be exempt from the sacrifices it will take to balance the budget.”

Kudos to Mrs. Gifford. I would go a bit further. As someone else said recently (can't remember who it was), if you want Congress to balance the budget, write a law that says Congress doesn't get paid UNLESS it balances the budget. That's the least we should expect from them. Let's put that referendum on the ballot in all 50 states and see what the voters have to say about it.

Because I have spent the last two posts going after Newt Gingrich to an extent, in fairness I am providing a link to Gingrich's website, where he answers recent charges made against him. I report, you decide (hmmm. Where have I heard that phrase before ? Sounds familiar).
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Larry Elder Treats Chris Matthews Like Chris Matthews And Every Other MSNBC Host Treats Conservative Guests…And Matthews Doesn't Like It One Bit:

Payback is a you-know-what, Mr. Matthews.
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House Rejects Balanced Budget Amendment (link):

The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal Friday to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget, seen by many as the only way to force lawmakers to hold the fiscal line and reverse the flow of federal red ink.

The 261-165 vote, though a clear majority, was 23 votes short of the two-thirds required to advance a constitutional amendment. Democrats voted overwhelmingly against it, apparently swayed by the arguments of their leaders that a balanced budget requirement would force Congress to make devastating cuts to social programs.

Four Republicans joined the Democrats in opposing the measure: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas.).

$15 trillion in national debt, annual trillion dollar deficits, and Congress doesn't have the votes for a balanced budget amendment. Yet another sign of our destruction.

I expect Democrats to vote against fiscal sanity, but….did I see that right ? Rep. Ryan voted AGAINST the balanced budget amendment ? What's up with that ? Here's Ryan's explanation:

Ryan said he was worried the version of the amendment could pave the way for more taxes, instead of reducing spending, to balance the budget, The Hill reported.

“Spending is the problem, yet this version of the BBA makes it more likely taxes will be raised, government will grow, and economic freedom will be diminished,” Ryan said. “Without a limit on government spending, I cannot support this amendment.”

Can't say I agree with Ryan's logic there. Tax increases may be bad, but this out-of-control debt bomb is far worse.

This is the first balanced budget amendment vote in 16 years. In 1995, a balanced budget amendment passed the House, when Republicans and 72 Democrats voted for it. That effort failed to pass the Senate by one vote, thanks to Democrat obstruction. Think of how much better off this country would be today if we had passed that amendment in 1995, and had not accumulated $10 trillion in new debt since. Thanks for nothing, Dumb-o-crats. This time around, only 25 Democrats in the House voted for a balanced budget amendment. I guess the Democratic party prefers national bankruptcy. In fact, I think that should be Obama's 2012 campaign slogan. DEBT FOREVER ! VOTE OBAMA.
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White House Shooter Made Videos:
I've been wondering why Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, the man suspected of shooting at the White House in an assassination attempt (his bullet was stopped by bulletproof glass), hated Obama so much. Ortega-Hernandez has referred to himself as a modern day Jesus, and called Obama the anti-Christ. As it turns out, Ortega-Hernandez made a video in hopes of being on Oprah's show:

VIDEO: Alleged White House Shooter Oscar Ortega-Hernandez: MyFoxDC.com

I wonder where our modern day Jesus/assassin got that "war for oil" stuff ??? Any liberals out there wish to hazard a guess ? I know how concerned y'all are about political rhetoric leading to violence.

In related news, the Occupy San Diego dumbsh*ts held a moment of silence to express "solidarity" with the shooter, because authorities thought Ortega-Hernandez may have been hanging out with the Occupy D.C. crowd (which seems now not to be the case).

Real brainiacs, those Occupiers. The Occupier arrest count now tops 3,600.
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My, How That Hope Did Change:

Here's candidate Obama in 2008, castigating Bush (justifiably) for Bush's debt accumulation:

"The problem is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents, [and] number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt."

Obama called Bush's spending and debt runup "unpatriotic" then, but now he calls Republicans unpatriotic because they won't spend and runup even more debt. Go figure. Obama has added $4.5 trillion to the debt in less than three years. It took Bush nearly eight years to do the same. If the debt trajectory continues and Obama is elected to a second term, he will add more to the national debt than every other President in U.S. history COMBINED. That is called epic fail, my friends.

Here's the rest of the scoop on Newt Gingrich's not-so-conservative positions, from the Cato Institute:

Gingrich's campaign nearly imploded this summer when he dismissed Rep. Paul Ryan's, R-Wis., Medicare reform plan as "right-wing social engineering." But that gaffe was a window into Gingrich's irresponsible approach toward entitlements.

In 2003, Gingrich stumped hard for President George W. Bush's prescription drug bill, which has added about $17 trillion to Medicare's unfunded liabilities. "Every conservative member of Congress should vote for this Medicare bill," Newt urged.

And in his 2008 book Real Change, he endorsed an individual mandate for health insurance.

It's also unclear why anybody looking to distance himself from Pelosi would plop down on a love seat with her to call for government action on climate change — as Gingrich did in a 2008 television commercial.

It was a season of bipartisan chumminess for Newt. "Kerry and Gingrich Hugging Trees — and (Almost) Each Other," the Washington Post described a 2007 global warming event Gingrich headlined with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

In 2009, the ethanol lobby paid his firm $312,000, and in 2006, the former speaker scored a $300,000 fee from Freddie Mac, one of the government-sponsored enterprises that helped pump up the disastrous housing bubble.

In addition, we have Gingrich's advocation of those "death panels" conservatives don't like, and here's a bit more on his ties to the pharmaceutical lobby:

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)is one of the largest lobbying organizations in the country, and it was a leading advocate of Bush's Medicare drug bill, which provides billions of dollars in subsidies for seniors to buy drugs, while prohibiting Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.

A source who worked for PhRMA at the time told me that Gingrich was being paid by "someone in the drug industry" — either PhRMA, some other industry group, or a specific drug company — as a consultant during the debate over the drug benefit. My source double-checked this with a former PhRMA colleague, who had the same recollection. The Gingrich Group operates the Center for Health Transformation, through which Gingrich publicizes his health care policy proposals.

"He received a monthly retainer," the former PhRMA employee recalls, saying Gingrich's price was "at the high end."

I don't want to pick on Newt, but he has some baggage, and I haven't even mentioned his divorce issues or his ethics violation that resulted in him resigning as Speaker Of The House and Congress. What can't be denied is that Gingrich is a beltway insider, has often acted like one, and profited from being one. As you can see from the above, Gingrich has endorsed big government policies in the past. He has also done some great work, as he did during the Clinton years when he helped write the Contract With America. When Gingrich was Speaker Of The House, the federal government balanced it's budget (more or less). That is no small achievement, and look where we've gone since he left his leadership role in Congress. We've gone into the dumper, and we now have a President who is leading us on the path of self-destruction. Even with his baggage, I would vote for Gingrich over Obama without a second thought.

In this election cycle, President Obama needs to manufacture something on which to run his campaign, because he sure can't run on his dismal record. If the American people ask themselves – Are we better off than we were four years ago ?, the answer is a resounding 'NO', and Obama will be out the door. Thus, Obama needs to distract the voters with some type of sideshow to win a second term. That sideshow will almost surely consist of the politics of division, in the form of Obama blaming a "do-nothing" Congress and Republican "obstructionism" for his failures as President. He'll also use his usual class warfare tactics. That approach will work with Democrats, but it won't work with Republicans and Independents. Obama needs more acts in his sideshow arsenal to distract voters from the reality of his presidency. He needs to be able to show that his policies are indeed the correct ones, and he can point to the items I just mentioned in Gingrich's record as proof that they are. Romney has some of the same problems to overcome, mainly with RomneyCare, but if conservatives are really looking for an anti-Romney candidate, the so-called "real conservative", shouldn't he at least BE an anti-Romney candidate ? I see Romney and Gingrich as being somewhat similar types, but Newt is actually the one with the most baggage to overcome, not Romney. I haven't heard a hint of scandal about Romney, and, unlike Obama, Romney has a proven track record of success in both the public and private sectors. Romney has some big advantages over Obama, and a challenger for the presidency needs those advantages. It is very difficult to defeat an incumbent, because the President has the bully pulpit, and he's going to have a boatload of money. As proof of how difficult it is to beat the incumbent, since FDR only three Presidents lost their bids for re-election (Bush Sr., Carter, and Ford), and Ford wasn't elected in the first place. He took over after Nixon resigned. That means only two elected incumbent Presidents have lost re-election since the 1930's. Beating Obama will be a formidable task.

Romney has also shown an ability to attract voters across the aisle. How else could he have become Governor in one of the most liberal states in the country, Massachusetts ? Gingrich's record is more divisive. He shouldered much of the blame for the government shutdown in the 90's (not a problem for me, but it is for others). If I was a Democrat opposition researcher, I'd have an easier time discrediting Gingrich than I would Romney.

I know this post is coming across as an ode to Romney and a swipe at Gingrich, and it sounds a bit harsher toward Newt than I actually feel, and a little more adoring of Romney than I actually feel. I like Newt. He is a good debater and he comes up with lots of interesting ideas. He comes up with more good ideas in a month than Obama has in his entire life. He's a policy wonk, a fighter, and if the Republicans make him the nominee, I will vote for him.

But what I want above all else is to defeat Obama. If we don't accomplish that…..this country is in BIG trouble. BIG trouble. I see the coming election as the most important one of my lifetime, and we can't afford to get it wrong this time. We can't afford to lose to Obama. As of today, I think Romney has the best chance to beat him, in my humble opinion.

In my ongoing quest to educate liberals, I have often pointed out a basic economic point – increasing taxes on businesses causes job losses. Therefore, I keep advocating massive business tax cuts to stimulate job creation in this country and end the recession. For some reason, liberals keep arguing with me, though for the life of me I can't figure out what they are arguing with. Here is yet more proof of what I'm talking about:

Stryker, the Kalamazoo-based maker of artificial hips and knees, will cut 5% of its global workforce by the end of next year to reduce costs in the face of new fees on device makers required by the U.S. health care law [aka, ObamaCare].

The job cuts will reduce annual pretax operating costs by more than $100 million beginning in 2013, when the medical-device excise tax is scheduled to take effect, Stryker said Thursday in a statement. Stryker had more than 20,000 employees as of Dec. 31, according to Bloomberg News data.

Liberals run around crowing about poverty, greed, taxing the rich, fair shares, income disparity, class warfare, etc, etc, etc., but the best anti-poverty program ever invented is called a J-O-B, and liberal tax and spend policies INHIBIT job creation.

While I'm on the subject of ObamaCare, here's another unintended effect of that ill-conceived legislation:

Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months.

This is not what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted would happen. Rather, the CBO had predicted that Obamacare would increase the number of people with employer-sponsored insurance by now. It had predicted that, under Obamacare, 6 million more Americans would have employer-sponsored insurance in 2011 than in 2010…

“The nation's largest private employer, Wal-Mart, announced in October that new part-time employees who work less than an average of 24 hours a week would no longer be able to get their health insurance from the company. Wal-Mart laid out several other cuts to its health insurance offerings, including some workers’ ability get coverage for their spouses. Other companies have already made and will likely continue to make similar changes to their health insurance benefits….

“If Wal-Mart's decision is a precursor of how employers intend to manage their healthcare costs, the downward trend in employer-based healthcare will likely continue.”

So in addition to costing about $2.5 trillion over its real first decade (2014 to 2023), looting nearly $1 trillion from Medicare over that time (according to the CBO), forcing Americans to buy government-approved health insurance under penalty of law, and amassing unprecedented power and money in Washington at the expense of Americans’ liberty — if Obamacare stays on the books, you may like your health care plan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can keep your health care plan.

This is yet another example of liberals loading costs onto the American private business sector, with predictable negative side effects. It also explains why the Obama administration has granted 1800 waivers to companies excluding them from ObamaCare regulations. If ObamaCare was actually helping businesses to compete in this country, that would not be necessary. Our brilliant President and his equally brilliant Democratic Congress actually designed a health care law that HURTS business and inhibits job creation, right smack dab in the middle of what Obama himself calls "the worst recession since the Great Depression".

Add this to the fact that Obama has run up a record amount of debt, with projected $1 trillion deficits as far as the eye can see, and my only question becomes…is Obama TRYING to destroy the country, or is he merely the dumbest and worst President in American history ??? In either case, unless we have a desire to commit national suicide, we better not elect him to a second term, and we better get rid of all the anti-business Democrats in Congress while we're at it. If there was ever a time for America to pursue pro-business job creation and economic growth policies, it's now. Unfortunately, Democrats are standing directly in the way, blocking the road to prosperity. There is no valid economic reason for it, which I suppose explains all the class warfare doubletalk Obama and the Democrats are engaging in. They would rather propagandize the country to win the next election than implement policies to get us out of economic flatline. They complain about jobs going overseas, while at the same time promoting tax increases, regulations, and spending policies that will send more jobs overseas. It's shameful, and it's far past time for somebody to call them out on it.

The Lord Of The Flies movement takes baby steps…

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: “We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out to curb the influx of derelicts.” – OWS kitchen volunteer Rafael Moreno

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others, Part II: "If you’re going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There’s a lot of takers here and they feel entitled. – OWS protestor Lauren Digiola (link)

Yes, we certainly can't have any entitlement-seekers infecting the Occupy movement of…um…entitlement-seekers. Gotta keep those losers out. The stuff the Occupiers have is THEIRS, dammit !!! They can't be expected to redistribute THEIR wealth to the less fortunate !!! We Are The 99%…except for those homeless derelicts !!!
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Robbing Peter To Pay Paul: "With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. … The legislation would … provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. … USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short — while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." –The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso

I call this the Social Security financial oversight model. When the government sees a pile of money, it can't keep it's grubby mitts off of it. Btw, there is about $17.5 trillion sitting in the retirement funds of Americans if you add all of them together. How much do you think the government money-grubbers would love to gain control of that pile of cash ??? You'd have to subtract the $2.5 trillion sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund from the $17.5 trillion amount, because those SS funds don't really exist (the government already "borrowed" that money), but still, that leaves $15 trillion in our retirement funds, which is almost the exact amount of the national debt. When the cash-strapped government is already thinking about "borrowing" money from the pensions of federal employees, how long will it be until your IRA's and 401K's are taken over ? Lest you think I'm engaging in some fanciful paranoid delusion…the Obama administration already has plans to takeover your 401K's, which it could then "borrow" from. Beware.
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National Debate Loser: And what can we say about Rick Perry ? Trying to list the federal departments he would eliminate, Perry had an epic debate brain fart instead…

"Commerce, Education and the, uh, what's the third one there? Let's see…The third agency of government I would — I would do away with, Education, uh, the, uh, Commerce and, let's see,…I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."

Doh !!!! I think the third government department Perry was going for there is Lingerie, or maybe Junior Miss. Commodore Perry's presidential battleship may have just sunk.
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When Life Gets Tough, Make Things Up: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

For the record, under Obama, the alleged "job creator from day one", we have lost about 2.4 million jobs, and nobody outside Pelosi's vivid imagination believes unemployment would have been at 15 percent without Obama's failed stimulus package. Pelosi is a perpetual brain fart.
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Top 1% Denier: Here's an exchange between left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and a CBS reporter…

Reporter: How are you helping these [Occupy protesters]?
Moore: Because I do well, I want taxes raised on people who do well, including mine.
Reporter: How are you helping these people with your $50 million?
Moore: I don't have $50 million.
Reporter: That's what it's rumored you are worth.
Moore: Well, really. Is that what you do is sell rumors?
Reporter: We're asking you for the truth.
Moore: You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
Reporter: Are you not part of the 1 percent?
Moore: Just don't lie, okay?

I'm still waiting for the FIRST left-wing multi-millionaire like Moore to give their own personal riches away for the "cause". When they start doing that, I'll start taking them more seriously, and not a moment before. Before the wealth redistributors start spending other people's money, how about they spend their own ???
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Unitary Executive Back In Style: "If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class". – VP Joe Biden

Whatever you say, Joe, but what about those 15 jobs-producing bills the Republican House has already passed that are sitting in the Senate waiting for the Democrats to bring them up ? In addition, why does every Democrat "jobs package" have to end up costing the taxpayers between $450 billion and $1 trillion ? Do Democrats simply not know our national debt is about to pass $15 trillion any day now ? Maybe their entire party has had a brain fart. The Democrats idea of stimulus is to take a bucket of water out of one end of the pool and pour it into the other end. They seem to believe they can fill up the pool this way. It won't ever work, because it CAN'T work. The real answer is to take money out of the government's hands and put it back into the hands of the private sector where it can do some good. The private sector is where growth comes from, not the government.
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And To Think, THIS Is the Guy They Call The Father Of The Democratic Party: "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." – Thomas Jefferson

While I'm quoting Jefferson, who in today's society believes these words ?…

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition". – Thomas Jefferson

Not the political left, I can tell you that for sure.

When President Obama announced that all US troops will be coming home from Iraq by the end of the year, he said it was a campaign promise fulfilled. He didn't bother to remind us it was George W. Bush's promise that was being fulfilled, not his own. Obama's campaign promise was to have us out of Iraq in sixteen months. That Obama promise was broken. Bush is the one who negotiated with the Iraqis to have US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama stuck to the Bush timetable. Obama also forgot to tell us that the USA has been negotiating to extend our troop stay in Iraq:

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House — anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq’s continuing political and security challenges — publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension. As recently as last week, the White House was trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000-3,000 troops to stay beyond the end of the year.

Those efforts had never really gone anywhere; one senior U.S. military official told National Journal last weekend that they were stuck at “first base” because of Iraqi reluctance to hold substantive talks.

That impasse makes Obama’s speech at the White House on Friday less a dramatic surprise than simple confirmation of what had long been expected by observers of the moribund talks between the administration and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which believes its own security forces are more than up to the task of protecting the country from terror attacks originating within its borders or foreign incursions from neighboring countries.

In Washington, many Republican lawmakers had spent recent weeks criticizing Obama for offering to keep a maximum of 3,000 troops in Iraq, far less than the 10,000-15,000 recommended by top American commanders in Iraq. That political point-scoring helped obscure that the choice wasn’t Obama’s to make. It was the Iraqis’, and recent interviews with officials in the country provided vivid evidence of just how unpopular the U.S. military presence there has become — and just how badly the Iraqi political leadership wanted those troops to go home.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, for instance, is a hugely pro-American politician who believes Iraq's security forces will be incapable of protecting the country without sustained foreign assistance. But in a recent interview, he refused to endorse a U.S. troop extension and instead indicated that they should leave.

"We have serious security problems in this country and serious political problems," he said in an interview late last month at his heavily guarded compound in Baghdad. "Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn't the answer to the problems of Iraq. It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it's definitely not the solution to the problems of my country."

Shiite leaders — including many from Maliki’s own Dawa Party — were even more strongly opposed, with followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatening renewed violence if any American troops stayed past the end of the year. The Sadr threat was deeply alarming to Iraqis just beginning to rebuild their lives and their country after the bloody sectarian strife which ravaged Iraq for the past eight and a half years.

Only the Kurds were willing to discuss the possiblity of US troops staying longer. The Sunnis and Shia are against it. Maliki recently said the only way US troops could stay was if they had no immunity from prosecution under Iraqi laws, which he knew the Pentagon would never agree to.

We're leaving because the Iraqis want us to leave, not because of any campaign promise. The Iraqis don't want US troops in their country, period. You can't blame them. It is their country, after all. I think it was a mistake to go there in the first place, even though Saddam was a complete scumbag who deserved his fate. Things in the Middle East are never as easy and straightforward as our leaders would like them to be, and getting involved there is fraught with risk and unintended consequences.

Thus, Obama is doing his usual spin job and trying to take credit, also as usual, but what the heck, the important thing is that we're leaving !!! Our troops can come home at long last !!! Iraq will be left up to the Iraqis, as we knew it ultimately would be. It's not like we were ever going to make Iraq our 51st state.

Now everybody should be happy, right ???

Of course not. This is politics. The last time everybody was happy in politics was probably back during Garden Of Eden times, before Democrats and Republicans started arguing about whose fault it was that Adam and Eve got booted. Let the naysaying begin:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in a statement that the Iraq withdrawal represents an “astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq.”

Romney also said it could put U.S. gains in the war at risk. “The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government,” Romney said.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said Obama is “putting political expediency ahead of sound military and security judgment.”

Jon Huntsman Jr. and Michele Bachmann, two other Republican presidential contenders, also released statements criticizing the withdrawal as premature and the result of a failure to work out a deal with Iraqis to protect U.S. troops.

Arizona Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election, said the withdrawal “marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world.”

McCain, a prominent voice in his party on defense matters, said military commanders have told him the Iraqi military still needs assistance from U.S. forces.

Sigh. You just can't please some people. Is this all merely partisan political posturing by GOP presidential contenders ? Sounds like it to me. Remember, BUSH was the one who originally setup the Iraq withdrawal timetable, not Obama. Haven't we been in Iraq long enough ? Haven't our troops paid enough of a price ? Here are some Iraq statistics from Bloomberg:

There have been 3,525 U.S. personnel killed in action in Iraq; an additional 957 died of other causes. More than 32,000 have been wounded. The war has cost at least $752 billion, including training for Iraqis and related diplomatic missions, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in January.

GOP presidential hopefuls are not the only ones saying an Iraq pullout is premature, a big mistake. Some generals are saying the same thing, including an architect of the 2007 troop surge that transformed the Iraq War. That general called the pullout an "absolute disaster":

“Forty-four hundred lives lost,” Gen. Keane said. “Tens of thousands of troops wounded. Over a couple hundred thousand Iraqis killed. We liberated 25 million people. There is only one Arab Muslim country that elects its own government, and that is Iraq.

“We should be staying there to strengthen that democracy, to let them get the kind of political gains they need to get and keep the Iranians away from strangling that country. That should be our objective, and we are walking away from that objective.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday warned Iran not to miscalculate the U.S. decision to withdraw its troops.

“No one, most particularly Iran, should miscalculate about our continuing commitment to and with the Iraqis going forward,” she said in an interview with CNN from Uzbekistan.

“In addition to a very significant diplomatic presence in Iraq which will carry much of the responsibility for dealing with an independent, sovereign, democratic Iraq, we have bases in neighboring countries, we have our ally in Turkey. We have a lot of presence in that region,” she added.

Are we making a huge mistake ? I wish I could tell you, but I don't know. I'm in Akron, Ohio, not Baghdad. If this is a mistake, I guess we'll soon find out.

Leading Democrats have been trying to tell us the government needs to spend a boatload more money to get the nation back to work. Around $450 billion more.

This is from The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

"It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to "put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that's our priority."

Reid is talking about the teacher/first responder bill S. 1723, which was part of Obama's jobs bill that was defeated in the Senate.

I have no idea what Reid was smoking when he said "private-sector jobs have been doing just fine". Unemployment was 7.6% when Obama took office. It's 9.1% now, and has been stuck there for months. That's a far cry from "just fine". We've LOST private sector jobs since Obama took office, and private sector job creation is stagnant. Since Obama's stimulus bill was passed in 2009, we've LOST 1.2 million jobs.

Vice President Joe Biden upped the rhetoric on Obama's jobs bill way beyond the pale by playing the RAPE card. You won't believe this:

…on Tuesday during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania [Biden] argued that another round of government spending was needed to prevent sexual assaults. “It’s not temporary [administration’s proposed stimulus] when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It’s not temporary to that woman.” Then in the same speech he wished Republicans were themselves rape victims. “I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.”

Freaking…WOW. That's the Vice President Of The United States talking, basically saying Republicans want women to be raped if they don't pass Obama's jobs bill. Politics of fear, anyone ? That's just despicable on Biden's part. Not to mention that police officers are hired from state and local government budgets, not by the federal government. In fact, if we want to keep more police officers on the job in Ohio, we could support Issue 2 in November, which will prevent a repeal of SB5. If that issue doesn't pass, police officers will probably be laid off due to Ohio's budget shortage. Democrats are AGAINST SB5, so…who wants to layoff police officers, Mr. Biden ??? If anybody wants Ohio women to be raped, it's…well, I won't go there. I'm not a low-down snake like Biden.

I also keep hearing about how our infrastructure is crumbling. Obama keeps saying it as he tries to push his jobs bill, and an Akron Beacon Journal article is today's newspaper talks about how so many Akron bridges are structurally deficient.

Every time I hear about how we can't afford teachers, police officers, firefighters, or infrastructure repair, one number keeps popping into my head. That number is $6.9 TRILLION.

$6.9 TRILLION is the total amount of money spent by federal, state, and local governments in the USA.

$6.9 TRILLION represents 46.5% of the total Gross Domestic Product of the USA. That's how big of a chunk the government is ALREADY taking out of our pocketbooks.

$6.9 TRILLION is an enormous amount of money, so much it's hard to even conceive.

And the Democrats are trying to tell us $6.9 TRILLION isn't enough money to provide teachers, police officers, firefighters, and infrastructure ?????????????

The Democrats are trying to tell us we need to spend $450 billion MORE to provide those things. You see, the $6.9 TRILLION currently spent by the government ISN'T ENOUGH to create jobs, according to the Obamanation administration.

Thanks Obamanators, but I dont think so. I was born, but I wasn't born yesterday. You can't sell your snake oil here.

But I have to hand it to the Democrats. When they pull a con, they don't go for the nickel and dime stuff. They go for the big con. The big score.

And we're all the marks.

If $6.9 TRILLION is not enough money for our government, then something is SERIOUSLY wrong…with our government. And that starts at the top. Let's correct that wrong next year.

"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this Presidency" – Barack Obama.

In March 2011, President Obama was given a "transparency award" from five different open government advocate groups. The award was presented to Obama in a private White House ceremony closed off from reporters and the public. Ironically, Obama received his transparency award in secret, because it could have proved very embarrassing to the President if reporters had brought up any of the following information at his TRANSPARENCY award celebration:

• President Obama has not decreased, but has dramatically increased governmental secrecy. According to a new report to the president by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) – the federal agency that provides oversight of the government's security classification system – the cost of classification for 2010 has reached over $10.17bn. That's a 15% jump from the previous year, and the first time ever that secrecy costs have surpassed $10bn. Last month, ISOO reported that the number of original classification decisions generated by the Obama administration in 2010 was 224,734 – a 22.6% jump from the previous year (see The Price of Secrecy, Obama Edition).

• There were 544,360 requests for information last year under the Freedom of Information Act to the 35 biggest federal agencies – 41,000 requests more than the year before. Yet the bureaucracy responded to 12,400 fewer requests than the prior year, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.

• Obama has invoked baseless and unconstitutional executive secrecy to quash legal inquiries into secret illegalities more often than any predecessor. The list of this president's invocations of the "state secrets privilege" has already resulted in shutting down lawsuits involving the National Security Agency's illegal wiretapping – Jewel v NSA and Shubert v Obama; extraordinary rendition and assassination – Anwar al-Awlaki; and illegal torture – Binyam Mohamed.

• Ignoring his campaign promise to protect government whistleblowers, Obama's presidency has amassed the worst record in US history for persecuting, prosecuting and jailing government whistleblowers and truth-tellers. President Obama's behaviour has been in stark contrast to his campaign promises, which included live-streaming meetings online and rewarding whistleblowers. Obama's department of justice is twisting the 1917 Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national security leaks – more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous administrations combined.

• The Obama justice department's prosecution of former NSA official Thomas Drake, who, up till 9 June, faced 35 years in prison for having blown the whistle on the NSA's costly and unlawful warrantless monitoring of American citizens, typifies the abusive practices made possible through expansive secrecy agreements and threats of prosecution.

• President Obama has set a powerful and chilling example for potential whistleblowers through the abuse and torture of Bradley Manning, whose guilt he has also publicly stated prior to any trial by his, Obama's, military subordinates.

• Obama is the only president who has reenacted Fahrenheit 451 by actually having his agency collect and burn a book due to a never-justified classification excuse: Lt Col Tony Shaffer's Operation Dark Heart.

• Under President Obama, the FBI has launched a series of raids and issued grand jury subpoenas targeting nearly two dozen antiwar activists. Over 2,600 arrests of protesters in the US have been made while Obama has been president, further encroaching on the exercise of first amendment rights.

• President Obama has initiated a secret assassination programme, has publicly announced that he has given himself the power to include Americans on the list of people to be assassinated, and has attempted to assassinate at least one, Anwar al-Awlaki.

• President Obama has maintained the power to secretly kidnap, imprison, rendition, or torture, and he has formalised the power to lawlessly imprison in an executive order. This also means the power to secretly imprison. There are some 1,700 prisoners outside the rule of law in Bagram alone.

• The Obama administration is also busy going after reporters to discover their sources and convening grand juries in order to target journalists and news publishers.

• President Obama promised to reveal White House visitors' logs. He didn't. In response to outrage over his refusal to reveal the names of health insurance CEOs he had met with and cut deals with on the health insurance reform bill, he announced that he would release the names going forward, but not those in the past. And going forward, he would withhold names he chose to withhold. White House staff then began regularly meeting lobbyists just off White House grounds in order to avoid the visitors' logs.

• President Obama has sent representatives to aggressively pressure Spain, England and Germany to shut down investigations that could have exposed the crimes of the Bush era, just as he has instructed the US justice department to avoid such matters. This includes his refusal to allow prosecutions of the CIA for torture, following a public letter from eight previous heads of the CIA informing him that he had better not enforce those laws.

While I don't agree with all the aforementioned accusations against Obama, this President deserved a transparency award about as much as he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize while he was fighting two wars and attacking people in other countries with Predator drones. It doesn't get more ironic than that. Btw, Obama just announced he's sending U.S. combat troops to Uganda ! Sigh. I think the U.S. now has troops everywhere except Antarctica. No, strike that. It turns out we DO have troops in Antarctica. Must be those insurgent penguin factions.

In a related transparency story, one of the names on the White House visitors' log in 2009 was one Malik Shabazz. You may remember a fellow named Malik Shabazz is a leader of the New Black Panther Party. You may also remember Malik Shabazz was one of the New Black Panthers who stood in front of a Philadelphia voting booth with nightsticks and intimidated voters. That is a federal crime, but Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder inexplicably dismissed the case. Two months later, someone named 'Malik Shabazz' visited the White House. Big Government's Andrew Breitbart has been asking the White House for over a year if the Malik Shabazz who visited the White House in 2009 was the New Black Panther Malik Shabazz (Panther Shabazz says it was), but the "transparent" White House has not answered his requests. Perhaps the White House wants to keep quiet the fact that then-candidate Obama appeared on the same podium with the New Black Panthers, a hate group, in 2007. It seems our mainstream media can't be bothered with such a story when it involves Obama, a Democrat. No, the media is too busy talking about an offensive word that was written on a rock 27 years ago on some hunting land Rick Perry's family once leased, a word that neither Perry nor his family placed on the rock, and that Perry's family painted over. THAT is somehow news when it involves a Republican. But Obama appearing onstage with a hate group in 2007 while he was running for President….nah, nothing to see here, says the illustrious mainstream media.

And speaking of Attorney General Holder…how many different stories are we going to get from him regarding the Fast And Furious incident ? When Holder was asked by Congress in May 2011 when he first heard of Fast And Furious, he said "I'm not sure of the exact date but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks." Later he told reporters, "The notion that this reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don't think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we'll see that's not the case." Unfortunately, none of what Holder said was true. E-mails revealed Holder knew about Fast And Furious since at least July 2010. Holder either lied to Congress, a federal crime, or he conveniently forgot all about an ATF program (the ATF works for Holder as head of Justice) in which thousands of American-made guns were purposely put into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of at least two U.S. agents and countless Mexicans. After Holder's falsehoods were revealed, the DOJ lamely claimed Holder doesn't read his e-mails, adding possible dereliction of duty charges to Holder's other problems. Then the Justice Dept. told CBS News that Holder thought the congressional inquirers were talking about some OTHER case (ah yes, the OTHER Fast And Furious operation ! That explains it. NOT !). Then they told CBS that Holder misunderstood the question, and that he DID know about the Fast And Furious case, just not the details…I assume Holder's next excuse will be, 'the dog ate my Fast And Furious notes'. This thing practically screams "coverup". The DOJ has not been cooperating with the investigation, and this week Congressman Issa (R-CA) subpoenaed all DOJ documents regarding Fast And Furious.

Can't you just smell the transparency ???

Btw, the White House just refused to turn over documents related to the Solyndra debacle, in which over a half billion taxpayer dollars were flushed down the toilet.

Maybe we should give Obama another transparency award. What the heck ? After all, he is a Democrat.

After nearly three years of Obama's policies, we know this much – Obama's policies aren't working. Unemployment is still over 9%, despite trillions spent on stimulus measures and three years of deficits in excess of a trillion dollars.

The President has run up $4.2 trillion in debt during his short tenure in office. He has run up about $110 billion in new debt each month he's been in office. That is a staggering amount.

Federal spending has risen by nearly $900 billion per year since 2008, since Obama became President. Government spending at all levels comes to $6.957 trillion, and represents 46.7% of GDP. Government is out of control.

Despite nearly $7 trillion in government spending, despite our unparalleled debt accumulation, President Obama has the gall to go on the campaign trail and say the problem is that he hasn't been able to spend ENOUGH. He's asking for another $450 billion in new stimulus spending, which he calls a jobs act, and he blames the Republicans for not going along with his plan to continue leading this country on a high-speed rail to fiscal destruction. I guess the government's existing $132,000 debt PER TAXPAYER isn't sufficient for our spendthrift President. And then Obama has the incredible arrogance to pretend he is being the righteous one who is looking out for the people (by bankrupting them). By definition, the people cannot be helped by going further into massive debt, by having their future earnings stolen away from them. Obama is not being righteous at all. He's being an irresponsible jerk.

If we lived in a sane country, with a sane media, the President would be tarred and feathered for his loose fiscal policy and his epic wastes of taxpayer money (YOUR money), and nobody would EVER consider re-electing him. Sadly, we don't live in such a country. We live in a country where political smoke and mirrors have left many of us befuddled. There is a segment of our society that actually agrees with Obama, that believes spending trillions of dollars more than we have is a good idea, as long as it provides a temporary bump to the economy, even if it unquestionably harms the economy over the longer term. These poor misguided folks apparently believe the temporary false "stimulus" policies are to continue indefinitely, until the economy magically improves. These beliefs represent the absence of common sense, an inability to accept reality. They believe our economy must be FORCED to attain some pre-determined level they deem appropriate, and if that level doesn't exist, why, we should just PRETEND it does. It's the Peter Pan theory of governance. I used to like to play pretend when I was four years old too, but it's shocking when so-called adults continue in the fantasy.

My question is…can Obama really be dumb enough to believe the snake oil he's selling ? I mean, the guy graduated from Harvard. He can't be this clueless, can he ???

My conclusion is…no, Obama is not this clueless…but he thinks you are. And thus the title of this blog post.

Obama knows his stimulus/jobs bill won't provide any lasting stimulus or lasting jobs. He knows this because he already saw the effects of Stimulus I. But Peter Pan wants to keep his fantasy alive until after the 2012 elections. That's also why Obama's Lost Boys are creating an unsanitary nuisance down on Wall Street, as they demand free stuff just because they WANT free stuff. Peter Pan has convinced them that the reason they can't have all the free stuff they want is because the rich don't pay their "fair share" in taxes, which is an outright lie. Of course, Obama doesn't care if it's a lie or not, because Peter Pan needs an evil Captain Hook to battle, and the "rich" fill the bill as the Neverland villain in Obama's re-election morality play. If you doubt whether the Occupy Wall Street movement is about the 2012 elections, ask yourself why those protesters weren't down on Wall Street back when the bailouts and financial crisis were happening at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. That's when the grassroots Tea Party movement happened. No, Obama's Lost Boys only show up three years later in time for presidential campaign season. What a coincidence !!!

There is a cure to the fantasy Neverland games of Peter Obama Pan and his Lost Boys. The cure is the truth. And the truth is, if we taxed all the millionaires in the country at 100%, it still wouldn't be enough to fund the existing government..and the ObamaCare mandate hasn't even taken effect yet, which is going to drive spending much higher. That's another reality the fantasy pushers won't fess up to.

I leave you with ten minutes of actual coherent problem-recognition and problem-solving policy as presented by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Contrast this with Obama's irresponsible divide-the-nation-and-conquer Neverland non-leadership. Ryan is light years ahead of Obama on economic matters. This video is well worth watching.

If you're not familiar with Reinhart and Rogoff's This Time Is Different, it's about how too much debt prevents the economy from growing, and it represents our future unless we change course.

Divider-in-Chief: Obama tells Congressional Black Caucus to stop complaining and start marching !

I have one question. When people are marching, doesn't that mean they are complaining, by definition ? Obama might as well have told the CBC to stop complaining, and start complaining louder.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a member of the CBC, felt slighted by the President's remarks, saying Obama would never tell the Jews, gays, or illegals to stop whining and complaining. Sounds like Waters has a case of identity group envy. Obama better call a beer summit of all the Democrat interest groups to get things straightened out.
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No Jobs Bill Yet: It's been three weeks since Obama told Congress to "pass this [jobs] bill immediately", even though there wasn't any jobs bill presented to Congress for it to pass. Someone should inform our President that in order to pass legislation, actual legislation must exist on which Congress can vote. The fact that there was no legislation didn't prevent Obama from taking to the campaign trail to hit Republicans over the head with the non-existent legislation. Where's the Saturday Night Live skit about this ?

Now, we have an update on Obama's jobs bill legislation from The Daily Caller:

“The focus right now from him [Obama] is ‘pass my whole bill, pass my whole bill,’ [and] some of the struggle with that is no Democrat in the House has even taken his bill and filed it yet. So we can’t even pass the bill because no one wants to put their name on it and say, ‘this is my bill’ and file it in the House,” said [Rep. James Lankford [R-OK] in a September 23 interview at the U.S. Capitol.

There still isn't any bill to pass, and it sounds like even Democrats are reluctant to sign on to Obama's $447 billion Stimulus II, which is very similar to his $817 billion Stimulus I. Maybe there's hope for the Dems yet.
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Other People's Money: Here's the bottom line on Obama's green jobs and Solyndra, from the L.A. Times:

Jim Nelson, chief executive of Solar 3D, a Santa Barbara company that is developing three-dimensional solar cell technology aimed at making more efficient solar cells, said the government should stay out of the business.

"If private investment cannot find a reason to invest in emerging technology to make it commercial," he said, "what is government doing it for?"

Indeed. When I invest my money in a private venture, I want to be the one to make that decision. I don't want Uncle Sam making it for me.
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Class Weird-fare: Here's some more from Obama's irrational tirade at the CBC.

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

The "Jew" part was a slip of the tongue, but…in what countries do billionaires pay less taxes than a janitor ??? Not this one. This lie from Obama is really getting irksome. If we can't have political discussions based upon the truth, there's no point in having them.
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Obamanation Jobs: It looks like the President HAS figured out how to create jobs after all…more government bureaucrats !!!.

The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.

Because the new bureaucratic army comes from Obamanation, it will, naturally, have a depressive effect on private sector jobs, and gives the EPA unilateral power to shut companies down anytime it wishes:

The proposed regulations would set greenhouse gas emission thresholds above which businesses must file for an EPA permit and complete extra paperwork in order to continue operating. If the EPA wins its court battle and fully rolls out the greenhouse gas regulations, the number of businesses forced into this regulatory regime would grow tremendously — from approximately 14,000 now to as many as 6.1 million

The EPA is admitting the new bureaucracy won't work, but it's pushing for it's expanded unilateral power regardless. Things are getting so bizarre in this country that I barely recognize it anymore. Welcome to Obamanation, a parody of itself. It's like The Twilight Zone, with a little Onion News Network thrown in for good measure. What's next ? Perhaps the Hitler Obama Youth can Rock The Totalitarian Vote in 2012 ?

I keep hearing the Republicans are "The Party Of No", but it's the Democrats who keep rejecting legislation passed by the Republican-led House. Earlier this year, the Democrat-led Senate rejected the House budget proposal. In August, the Senate rejected the House's Cut, Cap, And Balance plan to raise the debt limit and balance the budget. Now, the real Party Of No is at it again. It has rejected a House Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government and provide relief for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. Thus, we face ANOTHER possible government shutdown, because the real Party Of No, the Democrats, can never seem to agree on a budget. They haven't passed one in 2 1/2 years. They didn't even agree to pass Obama's budget. They rejected it unanimously.

The reason the Party Of No gave for its rejection this time is it's usual reason – Democrats don't want to cut spending, even though federal spending is far higher than usual and our deficit is astronomical.

The Senate on Friday rejected the GOP-led House's bill to avert a government shutdown, intensifying a partisan standoff that many in Congress hoped to avoid. The vote was 59-36.

Democrats in the Senate, who are in the majority, oppose Republican efforts to roll back "green" energy programs to pay for aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. They say disaster aid, usually a bipartisan issue, should not require cuts elsewhere — especially to programs creating green jobs — as the GOP majority in the House now demands.

The two sides are racing the clock, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to run out of disaster money Monday.

It's deja vu all over again. This also makes me wonder how in the world Democrats are ever going to agree to the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts the Super Committee is supposed to recommend as part of the debt ceiling deal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), ever the double-talking politician, had stressed the urgency of passing the CR on wednesday, but after the House passed a bill on friday, which Reid and company rejected, he changed his tune:

Earlier this week Mr. Reid was adamant that FEMA’s account was on the brink.

“The agency that rushes to help when disaster strikes will run out of money on Monday. I repeat, Monday,” he said Wednesday as he was pushing for quick action.

But by Friday he said he had been assured there was more time.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republicans’ leader in the chamber, tried to speed the vote up to Friday afternoon, but Mr. Reid objected, saying he wanted the cooling-off period.

“Cool off a little bit. Work this through. There’s a compromise here,” Mr. Reid said Friday, minutes after the Senate blocked back a bill drafted by House Republicans that would have replenished the disaster fund accounts through Nov. 18.

The CR would have kept the government running until 2012 had the Dems not rejected it:

The disaster money fight is tied to a broader bill that would keep the government open into fiscal year 2012, which begins Oct. 1. Congress has not passed any of the dozen spending bills required to fund basic operations, and without a stop-gap bill much of the government would shut down after Sept. 30.

In other words, we could have avoided this entire mess in the first place had Senate Democrats not rejected every budget placed before it while not offering any budget of it's own. The Senate has been in dereliction of it's basic duty for years.

In typical fashion, the fiscally irresponsible Democrats want the FEMA funds to be added to the deficit rather than display any shred of responsibility, which might harm their re-election chances:

Mr. Reid has called for a Monday vote on a new bill he wrote to accept the House-passed FEMA funding level, but to tack the additional spending onto the deficit rather than find cuts elsewhere.

Anybody remember the PAYGO legislation the Democrats passed a couple years ago, where the Dems proudly crowed about how federal spending would all be paid for now ??? The Democrats forgot all about that legislation the moment after it was passed. They scammed the American people. We've added $4 trillion to the debt in the 2 1/2 years Obummer has been President. The Democrats consistently vote for more fiscal irresponsibility, as they are doing here. They aren't just The Party Of No. They are The Party Of No Honor. Their lies flow like a river.

There's another reason Harry Reid wants a "cooling-off period" over the weekend:

Senate Democrats also have a major campaign event to raise money from high-dollar donors at the luxurious Kiawah Island in South Carolina this weekend.

Party on, Democrats. We know whose money you really care about…your own. While the Democrats wine and dine their well-heeled cronies (like the green entrepreneurs who funded Solyndra) on paradise island this weekend, I guess the business of the people can wait. Who cares if FEMA runs out of money on monday ? If that happens, I'm sure the Democrats can spin things to make it seem like the GOP's fault. That should be easy for a political party that has spent the last three years blaming everything on Bush, while it simultaneously destroys the economic future of this country.

Speaking of Solyndra, Barry's pals from Solyndra testified before Congress yesterday, if you can call pleading the 5th testifying. Here's a small example of the transparency and forthright honesty displayed by the Solyndra boys:

"Was the White House duped by Solyndra, or did they ignore the information to put green energy in a better light, or for more onerous reasons," asked Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, a Republican.

One of Solyndra's main financial backers was also a big fundraiser for Obama in 2008 and lawmakers have questioned whether that played a part in the loan guarantee.

Lawmakers wanted to know the nature of several meetings between the Solyndra executives and White House aids over the last couple of years.

"On advice of my counsel, I invoke the privilege afforded by the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I respectfully decline to answer any questions," was the response from each executive to every question.

Peachy. I guess the Solyndra boys had two choices – either plead the Fifth or say "I don't recall" like Hillary Clinton and the other Clintonistas did when asked about their scandals. The faulty memories of all those smart Clinton folk was known as Arkansas Alzheimer's back in the day.

I'll end with one comment about the Republican Fox/Google debate the other night. I'd vote for anybody on that stage over Barack Obama in 2012. Democrats keep talking about how Republicans would rather defeat Obama than help the American people. In my view, defeating Obama and helping the American people are the exact same thing. There is no distinction between the two.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that." – Barack Obama, on monday.

Yes, it would be hard to argue against that…if it was the truth. But it's not the truth. Our President is a big fat liar. Here's AP Factcheck:

President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries…The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

Obama says the top !% should pay their "fair share" of taxes, leading us to believe the rich are getting away with something. Wrong. From 2010 IRS data, it is known that the top 1% of earners in this country pay 38% of the federal income taxes, while making 20% of adjusted gross income, which means they are paying nearly double their "fair share". The top 20% of earners pay 87.3% of the federal income taxes. On the other end of the scale, nearly 50% of the workers pay no income taxes. The top 5% of earners pay more in income taxes than the bottom 95%. Enough of this "fair share" nonsense. Obama's tax proposal has nothing to do with fairness. Plus, the top 1% have a median income of $380,000 per year, not millions and billions. There are very few people in the million dollar earning range. In a country of 310 million people, only 236,000 have incomes above a million bucks. That's 0.007% of the population, and they already pay 20% of total federal income taxes. If anyone thinks taxing those few folks more is going to close a $1.6 trillion deficit and pay for the rest of us, you better think again.

In his latest speech, which comes on the heels of his speech proposing $447 billion in new stimulus measures, the President has proposed $3 trillion in deficit reduction. According to the Prez, his deficit reduction will consist of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and $1.5 trillion in tax increases, but as usual with this President, things are not what they appear to be. Let's take a closer look at that proposal.

On the spending side, Obama is counting as cuts $1 trillion in savings on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There's some major deception by the big fat liar here:

$1 trillion saved by ending combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans and some independent budget analysts say this is a gimmick because the troop drawdowns were already under way and amount to an accounting adjustment.

In other words, Obama is counting as savings $1 trillion in military spending that was never going to happen anyway. The real savings here is zero. The President is not the only big fat liar in this area. The Republicans also counted the phantom military savings as deficit reduction in their House budget proposal.

Obama's plan is really a $2 trillion deficit reduction package, 3/4's of which consists of various tax increases. Here are the rest of Obama's proposed spending cuts:

MEDICARE AND MEDICAID: $248 billion in reductions to Medicare. About 90 percent of the Medicare cuts would be squeezed from service providers such as drug companies, hospitals and nursing homes. Starting in 2017, the plan would significantly increase what many seniors pay for premiums, copayments and deductibles. Medicaid and other federal health care programs would be cut by about $73 billion. Among the proposals would be measures designed to reduce federal Medicaid payments to states.

OTHER MANDATORY SPENDING: $260 billion in cuts to other mandatory spending programs, including $33 billion by ending income support payments to farmers. The plan also would reduce federal workers' paychecks by 1.2 percent over three years, saving the government about $21 billion over 10 years. The plan estimates savings of nearly $78 billion by reducing waste and abuse in federal programs.

All I can say is, if a Republican President proposed cutting Medicare/Medicaid payments and raising premiums, copays, and deductibles, every liberal from coast to coast would be screaming about how the Republicans don't care about seniors and the poor. Remember the reaction to the Ryan plan ? And don't forget that ObamaCare already allegedly cuts $500 billion from Medicare. Also, notice the 2017 start date for the increased costs to seniors. Those would conveniently start right AFTER Obama completed his second term. What courage. And liberals, did y'all notice that Obama wants to cut the salaries of federal workers ? What about collective bargaining rights ? Oh wait. Those federal workers don't have them. Never did. When will you launch the 'Recall Obama' campaign, like you did to legislators in Wisconsin, or the 'Repeal SB5' campaign, like you did in Ohio ? Hmmm ? I can't hear you….

On the tax side, Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts for couples making over $250,000, limit tax deductions for the wealthy, and end some corporate loopholes and subsidies. This comes on top of the $1 trillion in spending cuts the super committee is working on as a result of the August debt deal. The rosiest way to look at all this is, if the entire $3 trillion in revenue increases and spending cuts over ten years is enacted, our annual deficit will drop ALL THE WAY DOWN TO $1.3 TRILLION !!! Hurrah !!! Mission Accomplished !!! Four More Years !!! Four More Years !!! It's not exactly Morning In America, but AT LEAST IT'S NOT THE GREAT DEPRESSION !!!

I just thought of something. Doesn't conventional economic wisdom say one shouldn't raise taxes during a recession ??? I thought so, and here's what one of the leaders of our country said a couple years ago…

"The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a recession, because that would just suck up, take more demand out of the economy, and further put businesses in a hole" – Barack Obama, August 2009.

Yes, I agree. Maybe somebody should introduce this Barack Obama to that other Barack Obama guy. Who knew there were two of them ?

If any of you are wondering why I haven't mentioned the proposed Buffett Rule…it's because there ISN'T a proposal:

…the administration said it wanted the Buffett Rule to be a guiding principle for tax reform. But that was it on details. "We're not going to give the Congress a detailed proposal for how to meet that specific principle now because there's lots of different ways to do that," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Monday.

Perhaps on another day, once the administration figures it out.

When you ask liberals if they believe in corporate welfare, they will overwhelmingly say 'no'. They are outraged over corporate welfare !!! I'm down with that…but then ask those same liberals if Uncle Sam should subsidize renewable energy initiatives, and the answer magically changes to 'yes'. Therefore, liberals are against corporate welfare, except when they are for it.

The country's head liberal, President Obama, is one of those who rails against corporate welfare while he pushes corporate welfare at the same time. As the Prez has told us countless times, he thinks green jobs are the future. That may be true, but Obama omits the part about American green jobs not being so much the NOW. Obama is all about subsidizing green companies at taxpayer risk. As we have seen from the collapse of Obama's favorite green-tech company, Solyndra, along with the collapse of other green companies that were funded by Obama's Stimulus plan, the President's wishes don't make things so. Obama can engage in all the hope and change dreams he wants, but somewhere along the line, reality must be taken into account.

Here was the reality of Solyndra:

An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Obama administration signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million.

Sounds like a great investment, eh ? But I want to be fair. Startup up companies sometimes do lose money initially. It's the profit potential that motivates investors. What were Solyndra's future prospects ?:

"We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, including a net loss of $114.1 million in 2007, $232.1 million in 2008 and $119.8 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, and we had an accumulated deficit of $505 million at Oct. 3, 2009," the company said in a December 2009 filing to the SEC. "We expect to continue to incur significant operating and net losses and negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future."

Hmmm. So, when the Obama administration looked at Solyndra, a company that had lost hundreds of millions of dollars from day one, a company that expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars more in the "foreseeable future", a company that lost money on every single product it sold,…Obama decided to lend THAT company $535 million in taxpayer-guaranteed money and make it the highlight company for his green jobs agenda. That sounds more like a pipedream than hope to me. And then when Solyndra, as predicted, burned through it's cash like a Texas wildfire, the Obama administration restructured the loan so the private investors would be repaid ahead of the taxpayers….and one of those private investors just so happened to be a big-time Obama campaign contributor !!!:

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government.

Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign, federal election records show. Kaiser has made at least 16 visits to the president's aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs.

Ka-ching !!! That must be the 'Change' part of Hope And Change. Cronies get paid first.

This all sounds pretty bad. Why would the government do this ? Let's turn to the DOE for an explanation:

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Friday that the company's financial losses were not uncommon for a high-tech startup and were a major reason Solyndra applied for the federal loan. The loan program is intended to help promising companies that cannot receive financing through private banks because of high risk.

Okay, now it all makes perfect sense. You see, when the government runs across a company so risky and shaky that the banks won't lend it money, THAT'S when the taxpayers should be put on the hook for the dough…when it's likely the company will, you know, collapse. Sigh. This stuff is getting so outrageous that I can't even be outraged anymore. I'm getting numb to it. When did this country enter the Twilight Zone, and how do we get out ? Now we have the federal government gambling taxpayer dollars like it's playing roulette in Vegas. Only the "high risk" companies merit taxpayer investment ??? WTF ?!?!?!

I can't stand it anymore. Over and out.